Chalkbeat

Indiana school district referendum guide 2026: What to know about your district’s requested tax increase

2026-08-17T11:00:00+00:00

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This article was co-reported with WFYI.

A record number of school districts are asking voters to approve higher property tax rates this fall as recent tax reforms compound with the state’s existing property tax caps to bring financial stress to districts across Indiana.

Nearly all of the 38 school districts seeking referendums are doing so to cover operating expenses, such as transportation and teacher salaries. But the impact on taxpayers can vary based on a community’s assessed property values and whether the district already has a referendum in place.

Many districts attribute the need for a ballot question to Senate Enrolled Act 1 from 2025, which will bring property tax relief to homeowners by phasing in new property tax deductions and creating new property tax credits — changes that at one point were estimated to cost districts a collective $744 million.

But districts also face a multitude of other challenges, including rising operational costs, declining enrollment, and a competitive school choice landscape that, for the first time this year, will include private school vouchers for every family regardless of income. Districts are also now restricted in how often they can ask voters for a referendum to the November general election, which are held every even year.

Chalkbeat Indiana and WFYI have compiled a referendum guide to help you understand your district’s ballot question.

What to know about referendums at the polls

If voters in your school district have recently passed a referendum, the new ballot question is likely asking them to replace it with a higher tax rate — not charge the new rate on top of the existing one — to offset revenue the district expects to lose under property tax reform.

Yet some school districts are warning voters that the ballot question does not clearly explain that distinction.

State law requires ballot language to describe a referendum’s cost as if a district currently has none. In Westfield, for example, the ballot question lists an $873 annual increase for a $450,000 home, based on a maximum rate of $0.3941 per $100 of assessed value. But Westfield Washington Schools already collects a rate of $0.17 per $100 under a referendum voters approved in 2023.

If voters approve the measure in November, the new tax rate would replace the existing $0.17 rate rather than be added on top of it. As a result, the owner of a $450,000 home would pay closer to $494 more a year, not $873, according to the district.

Five districts are seeking a property tax increase for the first time: the Metropolitan School District of Shakamak, Mississinewa Community School Corporation, Shelbyville Central Schools, Tipton Community School Corporation, and Tri-Central Community Schools.

State law previously required that districts in four counties — Lake, Marion, Vanderburgh, and St. Joseph — share their operating referendum proceeds with charter schools enrolling students living within their boundaries. But beginning in 2028, all districts statewide must share with charter schools that enroll students within their borders.

This year, only districts in Marion and Lake counties have stated that they will share their potential revenue with charters, which is estimated at over $49 million for about 60 charter schools, according to documents districts submitted to the Department of Local Government Finance. Spending plans and amounts for charter schools were submitted by districts, although these plans may not include all of the charters eligible to receive money.

Statewide, the requested tax rates range from an extra $0.9912 per $100 of assessed value for the River Forest Community School Corporation to an additional $0.09 for the Clark-Pleasant Community School Corporation.

Search for details on your district’s ballot question below. Figures in district spending plans and charter school amounts are estimations.

The general election is on Nov. 3, and voters can register to vote, check their sample ballot, and check voting locations at https://indianavoters.in.gov/. Early voting starts on Oct. 6.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Weddle is WFYI’s education editor. Contact Eric at eweddle@wfyi.org or follow him on X at @ericweddle.

IPS school board approves Cold Spring School’s bid to be an innovation charter school

2026-06-26T01:04:09+00:00

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The Indianapolis Public Schools board reversed its decision from last year and approved Cold Spring School’s request to remain in the district’s Innovation Network as a charter school.

The board also approved two new innovation schools: a second campus for Global Prep Academy and a new Monarca Academy high school. Both schools are already in the Innovation Network.

Innovation schools are independently run but receive some services from IPS such as transportation, food service, or building space. While many innovation schools are charter schools, some are not. Those schools rely more heavily on IPS for student services such as special education and English learner support.

The changes are all for one year, as contracts for Cold Spring, Global Prep, and Monarca are all up for renewal this year, according to Ricky Ritter, IPS director of innovation schools.

IPS superintendent Aleesia Johnson told the board that she expects more clarity around the district’s future and finances ahead of the renewal votes.

Here’s an overview of the changes.

Cold Spring School will become a charter school

Cold Spring School, which serves grades K-8, is an innovation school that wants to become a charter innovation school. Last year, the IPS school board rejected that request, saying the city’s education policy landscape was in flux.

This year, the board approved an amendment to Cold Spring’s innovation school contract that allows it to be a charter school.

Cold Spring Chief Operating Officer Cody Stipes told the school board that becoming a charter school would allow the school to access about $1.8 million more in state funding along with opportunities for federal and grant funds. The school can expand programming and academic offerings with the added money.

With the change, Cold Spring will contract with IPS for custodial and food services, while IPS would continue to provide transportation and the school building. As a charter school, Cold Spring will take over services for students with disabilities and English language learners from IPS, saving the district more than $800,000, per Stipes.

Global Prep Academy splits into 2 campuses

Global Prep Academy is expanding from one building to two to free up space at its current location at Riverside School 44. The existing campus will serve students through fifth grade, while a new location, Global Prep at the Monon, will serve grades 6-8.

The IPS board approved a one-year innovation school contract for the new school and amended its contract with Global Prep at school 44 to reflect the grades served at that location.

Global Prep owns the new building and will manage IT, custodial services, and food services. IPS will provide transportation for the schools. IPS will also save more than $96,000 a year by removing a modular classroom from school 44.

Monarca Academy adds high school

Monarca Academy, which is co-located at Northwest Middle School, is splitting into a middle school and a high school but remaining in the same building.

The IPS board approved a one-year innovation school contract for Monarca Academy High School and amended the existing contract for Monarca’s middle school to reflect the grade changes.

IPS will continue to provide custodial services, food service, transportation, and building space for both schools.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

IPS experiences biggest enrollment loss since pandemic, state records show

2026-01-20T12:00:00+00:00

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Indianapolis Public Schools experienced its greatest annual enrollment decline since the pandemic while charter school enrollment also dropped — trends that could signal fundamental challenges for both school types.

IPS enrollment dropped by 6% since last school year to 19,774 in 2025-26, while enrollment across both independent charters and charters in the district’s Innovation Network dropped nearly 3% from last year to just under 22,000 students, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of state enrollment data.

Overall, 41,663 students attend IPS or charter schools, with roughly 47% at IPS and about 53% at charters. (The analysis also includes charter schools just outside of IPS where a majority of students live in district borders.)

Across most Marion County school districts, there were also slight enrollment declines.

The enrollment dips come as schools across the country experience a continual post-COVID population drop that could stem from a number of factors, including declining birth rates, stricter immigration policy, and other school options. In Indianapolis, the declines could exacerbate a financial crunch schools are expecting through incoming property tax reforms estimated to cost school districts millions. In addition to property tax revenue, schools receive state funding that’s based on enrollment.

The declines also come with major changes on the horizon for Indianapolis public schools. Lawmakers are considering creating a new Indianapolis Public Education Corporation that would eventually own all school buildings and run transportation services, as well as levy and collect property taxes for schools and create an accountability system that includes closing low-performing schools.

“The reality facing public schools across the U.S. is that enrollment has been decreasing,” IPS said in a statement. “We will continue to thoughtfully navigate these shifts while also working hard to be the preferred choice for more families.”

In the charter sector, school mergers — which have occurred in recent years as schools have struggled with finances or enrollment — could be a solution if enrollment continues to decline.

“We do think that’s a really thoughtful strategy to both work to increase the number of kids that are attending higher quality operators, and to make sure that schools are operating as near to their capacity as possible,” said Brandon Brown, head of the Mind Trust nonprofit that has launched many of the city’s charter schools.

IPS enrollment drops by over 1,000 students

Enrollment at IPS schools declined by 1,281 students from last year to this year, the greatest drop since losing 2,681 students after the 2019-20 school year. These schools include traditional IPS schools and those in the Innovation Network that are not charter schools.

The decline mirrors broader demographic trends. State records show the number of students living in IPS attendance boundaries fell from 49,721 in October 2024 to 48,869 October 2025, a 1.7% drop. These figures exclude students attending private school without a state-funded voucher or those who are home-schooled.

A demographic report commissioned by the district and released in 2021 projected that enrollment in seventh and eighth grades, as well as the elementary school population, would decline.

But the district’s greatest declines occurred at the high school level, with high school enrollment dropping 9% to 5,115 across its four high schools and smaller high school programs. Ninth grade saw the highest percentage decrease at roughly 20%, or a loss of 281 students over last year.

Middle school enrollment dropped nearly 6% to 3,626.

Meanwhile, enrollment at independent charters dropped by 740 students — the largest year-over-year drop in at least seven years — while Innovation Network charters grew by 113 students.

(The analysis includes prekindergarten students in total counts, and excludes adult charter high schools and virtual or blended charter schools not affiliated with the Innovation Network.)

Across the nearly 60 charter schools, overall enrollment dropped from 22,516 to 21,889 — a loss of 627 students, or nearly 3%. These schools primarily lost students in the lower elementary grades.

But IPS noted that enrollment in its portfolio of schools — which include both traditional schools and those in the Innovation Network — has remained “remarkably stable.” That total figure dropped by roughly 4%, from over 32,000 students last year to under 31,000 this year.

The Mind Trust, meanwhile, noted that more students are attending autonomous schools — charters and Innovation Network schools, both charter and non-charter — than traditional district schools.

IPS, charter demographics remain largely unchanged

Racial and ethnic demographics have largely remained the same across district and charter schools.

Independent charters continue to have a higher proportion of Black students but a lower proportion of English language learners than IPS schools and charters in the Innovation Network.

Although immigration enforcement efforts have raised concerns about enrollment declines nationwide, the proportion of English language learners as a percentage of total enrollment has remained relatively stable.

The percentage of IPS students receiving free or reduced-price meals jumped from roughly 59% to nearly 68%, although both Innovation and independent charters continue to enroll a higher share of such students.

State data on enrollment levels of students with disabilities across the different school types is not yet available.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Global Prep to open second location near Martindale-Brightwood to accommodate growth

2026-01-15T12:00:00+00:00

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Global Prep Academy will expand its middle school grades to a second site near Martindale-Brightwood with the $2.7 million purchase of a building directly off the Monon Trail.

The new building at 1002 E. 25th St. sits on a former industrial site and will be renovated to house up to 325 middle school students, according to Global Prep founder Mariama Shaheed.

The pre-K-8 charter school’s enrollment has more than tripled since launching as an autonomous Innovation Network school within Indianapolis Public Schools in 2016. The charter was tasked by the district with turning around the underperforming Riverside School 44 and started that year with 269 students. Today, it enrolls more than 800.

The second building, which Global Prep said will open in the fall, will free up space at School 44 roughly three miles away, where seventh and eighth grade students currently learn in a modular classroom outside the main building.

The expansion comes on the eve of what could be a transformation for IPS. State lawmakers are considering legislation that would force IPS to relinquish control of all its buildings to an independent authority, which could award space to deserving, high-performing charter and district schools.

But capacity has been a challenge at Global Prep for years, Shaheed said. Prior to deciding to open a second site near the Monon Trail, the school had planned to expand its program within Harshman Middle School as part of the district’s Rebuilding Stronger plan — but the district later abandoned this plan after pushback from the community there.

Shaheed attributes the enrollment growth in part to the school’s dual language model, as well as its support for all students, including those with disabilities.

“We’ve always had the approach that if you come to our doors, we’re going to serve you and serve you well,” Shaheed said.

Second site could help Global Prep’s founding mission

Shaheed said she was attracted to the site not only for its availability, but also because of her initial intent in founding Global Prep: to bring dual language education to more Black families.

The site is on the edge of Martindale-Brightwood, an area that has been home to working-class Black families and industrial companies, according to the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis.

The new location shares a transportation zone with the lower school in Riverside, remaining just on the edge of Zone 1. Families who live in Zone 1 and Zone 2, the northwestern and northern parts of the district, receive transportation to Global Prep.

Shaheed said the school is working with the district to get transportation to its second site, but added she hopes nearby students will also walk to school.

“We want kids to walk to school,” she said. “We want to be right there and serve that community.”

Since Global Prep transformed School 44 into a dual language program, its demographics have changed from majority Black to majority Hispanic.

Shaheed is working to increase the Black student population, with more intentional recruitment efforts at the kindergarten and pre-kindergarten level, she said.

New location for Global Prep has a railroad history

The middle school’s new location was once part of a railroad switching yard and a motor machinery warehouse, among other industrial uses, according to documents filed with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, or IDEM.

Global Prep Academy, a charter school in the Riverside neighborhood, will open a second location at a former printing facility off of east 25th Street near Martindale-Brightwood. The school, which has grown since taking over Riverside School 44, will place its middle school grades at the new site.

Given its past, it was classified as a brownfield — a federal and state classification given to sites that could have hazardous substances or contaminants.

But as long as the school adheres to a restrictive covenant placed on the land, it can have a “safe redevelopment of any kind,” officials with the Indiana Brownfield Program said in a statement.

That restriction requires the land owner to submit a soil management plan approved by IDEM before digging up soil. The soil management report commissioned by the school in 2025 and later approved by IDEM ultimately found that there were no hazardous concentrations of any contaminants in the soil, Indiana Brownfield Program officials said.

Shaheed said the school is also avoiding digging at the site altogether, instead working to renovate the existing building.

“We’ve done our due diligence in terms of bringing on the right people who know that work to make sure that as we move forward, we’re safe for kids,” she said.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Local Education Alliance backs plan to create new education authority to oversee IPS, charter schools

2025-12-18T01:24:32+00:00

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In a move with potentially profound consequences for Indianapolis education, a state-backed task force has told lawmakers they should establish a new agency to oversee both the city school district and charter schools.

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance voted 8-1 on Wednesday to recommend the creation of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation that could set and enforce standards for both district and charter schools. The new agency would consist of nine members appointed by the mayor: three IPS board members, three charter leaders, and three at-large members, all of whom would have to live within IPS boundaries.

The new corporation would have the power to impose property taxes for both charter and IPS schools. It would also manage the district’s buildings and transportation services through its own staff, establish a framework for school accountability, and manage a unified enrollment system.

If state lawmakers agree to turn the ILEA’s recommendations into law, the vote would mark a monumental shift in the city’s educational landscape. It would represent a significant loss of power for IPS and a qualified victory for charter supporters, after years of rising conflict between the two sectors. The GOP-run state legislature has become increasingly skeptical of IPS while passing legislation favorable to charters when it comes to issues like property taxes.

In addition, the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance voted to restrict the number of charter school authorizers to the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, the Indiana Charter School Board, and the IPS school board, which this week said it will seek to become a charter authorizer. The recommendations also require all schools to offer transportation to students living within the IPS boundary, and exempt IPS buildings from a state law that requires districts to make unused buildings available to charter schools for the sale or lease price of $1.

Under the recommendations, school boards would retain the power to set certain policies, hire leaders — including the superintendent — and approve budgets and contracts. The recommendations, which will be in a final report, were outlined to the public in a presentation.

ILEA member Tina Ahlgren, an IPS parent and teacher, was the sole no vote.

The ILEA’s recommendations come amid struggles by both IPS and charters to address structural challenges.

The district has been losing students for years. IPS also has significant long-term financial problems as well as underutilized buildings. Charters, meanwhile, have struggled to acquire buildings and provide transportation services as their enrollments have grown, and roughly 1 in 3 Indianapolis charters closed from 2001 to 2023.

The ILEA’s recommendation to reduce the power of the IPS board matches the desire among many charter supporters for less power to rest with the elected school board.

But supporters of traditional IPS schools have not only opposed efforts to diminish the elected school board; they’ve also pushed for the board to exercise power over charters as well as district-run schools. They’ve criticized the growth of charters, calling for more accountability in that sector, and said that the elected school board should serve as the only charter authorizer.

In a statement before the vote, Superintendent Aleesia Johnson — who is an ILEA member and voted yes — said she championed many of the recommendations.

But not all the details of what the ILEA has recommended are clear yet, she noted. She urged the public to keep pressure on state lawmakers to ensure any new authority is transparent and values community input.

“In my most pessimistic moments, I can assume that those details will be filled in ways that intentionally bring harm to families, staff and students in IPS,” Johnson said. “However, because the details aren’t filled in, I actually do — naively or not — hold some level of optimism.”

The Mind Trust, a nonprofit that’s supported many Indianapolis charter schools, celebrated the “bold, structural changes” in the ILEA recommendations.

“Separating the education of students from the management of real estate and transportation is a nationally unique innovation that The Mind Trust has long supported,” Brandon Brown, the group’s CEO, said in a statement Wednesday. “This approach will expand access to transportation for thousands of students, ensure that facility access is tied to school quality, and create a path to full funding parity by ensuring capital funds are available to charter schools that opt in.”

Some speakers say elected board should maintain power

Several people expressed hostility to the ILEA’s plans on Wednesday, and some didn’t wait until the task force’s meeting began to do so.

Roughly 60 people supportive of traditional IPS schools gathered outside of the City-County Building ahead of the vote to urge the ILEA to consider a Central Indiana Democratic Socialists of America proposal that would expand the power of the elected IPS board. They also attacked how charter schools operate and the private interests that support them.

“We’re told, ‘This is for the kids,’ but if that was true, the money and political will behind privatization could have fully supported public schools serving mostly Black and brown students decades ago,” said Brianna Dines of the Central Indiana DSA.

In a public comment period at the meeting before the ILEA voted, many speakers chastised the task force for diluting the school board’s power. Pastor Clyde Posley Jr. said the ILEA’s process amounted to political overreach.

“To remove the voices of elected board officials and replace them with other overt or private agendas — which do not benefit our children in the short or long term, but only invite scavengers and investors to pillage off the plight of a broken school system — is not only wrong, it is vicious toward the well being of our children and their future,” Posley Jr. said.

Meanwhile, organizations that back charter schools celebrated the recommendations minutes after the vote.

“While the ILEA’s final plan differs somewhat from advocates’ ideas, parents celebrated the focus on stronger school accountability, a growing transportation system and a more unified and coherent approach to school facilities,” Stand for Children Indiana, a parent advocacy group that has pushed to expand certain charter models, said in a statement.

Universal ratings could guide school closure decisions

Under the recommendations, the new corporation would create an advisory board that would collaborate with charter authorizers and IPS to develop unified accountability standards. Those would be based on measures such as test scores and student discipline practices.

Both charter and district schools would need to commit to use the standards to make decisions about closing chronically low-performing schools — provided that struggling schools are given time to make improvements.

The task force also recommended that the legislature fund the full cost of educating students with disabilities. The ILEA noted that IPS spends millions more to educate students with disabilities than what the state provides.

It’s unclear whether the new authority would assume control of both IPS school buildings and those owned by charters.

The task force also noted that details on how exactly to collect and distribute property taxes would need to be ironed out with fiscal experts at the statehouse. Other topics, the group noted, also require further legal review.

Ahlgren highlighted the lack of details in the recommendations as a key reason why she could not support them.

“I find these recommendations falling into this bizarre zone of simultaneously feeling both too much and not enough, bold in some areas, but overly timid in others, with vague promises that the ecosystem will sort itself out,” she said. “I’ve done enough policy work … to understand the dangers of leaving important elements up to chance — or worse, a legislature which historically has not aligned with the values of this community.”

Before his vote of support, ILEA member Andrew Neal acknowledged to the crowd that “this is an imperfect plan.” But he said he was proud the group recommended mandating transportation, and called on the legislature to adequately fund students with disabilities.

Lawmakers will return to the statehouse on Jan. 5 to resume the legislative session.

This story has been updated to include additional details about the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance’s recommendations and comments from officials and members of the public.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Here are 5 things the mayor and IPS superintendent want in the ILEA recommendations

2025-12-16T16:01:40+00:00

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The day before a scheduled vote on recommendations that could impact who oversees Indianapolis schools, Mayor Joe Hogsett and Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Aleesia Johnson announced their preferred outcomes.

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance is scheduled to vote Wednesday on final recommendations about the future of the city’s district and charter schools. The ILEA will then send those recommendations to state lawmakers.

The task force is considering two proposals that would limit the power of the elected IPS school board.

One would give oversight of charter and IPS schools to a collaborative board consisting of IPS, mayoral, and charter school appointees. Another would give oversight to an independent Indianapolis Education Authority within the mayor’s office, and create a new secretary of education position.

But notably, Hogsett, the chair of the alliance, and Johnson, a member, didn’t express a preference for either proposal or any other plan for who would run schools.

Instead, their five priorities, which they announced via a Tuesday press release, focus on transportation and buildings, as well as limiting charter authorizers and ensuring schools have funding to serve all students, such as those with disabilities.

Hogsett and Johnson’s five priorities are:

Exempting IPS from the so-called $1 law, which allows charter schools to purchase or lease district buildings no longer used as schools from the district for $1.
Requiring all public schools — including district-run and charter schools as well as Innovation Network schools — to offer transportation or forfeit their share of property taxes. (Legislation passed earlier this year allows all charter schools to receive property tax funds starting in 2028.)
Limiting charter authorizers to two who can approve schools within the boundaries of the IPS school district: the Office of Education Innovation and the Indiana Charter School Board. (Currently, charter schools in Indianapolis use one of three authorizers.)
Have a shared framework for making decisions about buildings to give the community a clear understanding of how decisions about school buildings are made. The press release notes there are more than 103 school buildings for 41,000 students within IPS boundaries.
Make sure all public schools, regardless of type, have resources and funding to serve and be accessible to all students, including students with disabilities, students facing homelessness, and English language learners.

The ILEA was created by state lawmakers and tasked with making recommendations about how the district and area charter schools might share buildings and buses. But lawmakers also gave the task force the ability to make recommendations on other topics, including school governance.

Last month, the alliance said addressing who oversees schools would be key to its recommendations. Hogsett and Johnson said they drew up their priorities for the ILEA’s recommendations after listening to community input.

The ILEA, which has nine members, has met since the summer and most recently had two public comment sessions ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

At one of those sessions on Monday, members of the Indianapolis community raised concerns about the potential impact of the ILEA’s recommendations on the elected school board. Another speaker asked whether the ILEA would recommend repealing the $1 law about building acquisitions — an idea that appears to have growing bipartisan support among Indiana lawmakers.

Members of the public have also sparred over whether the ILEA should recommend limiting the number of authorizers for Indianapolis, and requiring all public schools to provide transportation. Charter advocates in particular have criticized these ideas as an infringement on charter autonomy.

The ILEA will meet to vote on its final recommendations at 6 p.m. on Dec. 17 at the City-County Building at 200 E. Washington St.

Chalkbeat Indiana reporter Aleksandra Appleton contributed reporting.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

As the ILEA mulls changing how Indianapolis schools are run, here are 5 key unanswered questions

2025-12-11T00:25:43+00:00

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A state-mandated task force is one step away from proposing major changes to who oversees public schools in Indianapolis. But even at this late stage, significant questions remain.

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance is weighing two options that would leave the elected Indianapolis Public Schools board in place but significantly weaken its power. The task force is mulling two possibilities. One model would create a “collaborative compact advisory board” that would oversee both traditional public schools and charter schools. The other would establish a separate authority and create a new position for Indianapolis schools: a secretary of education.

Such a loss of power by the elected IPS board could have profound effects on the city’s schools and change their relationships with students, families, state officials, and others. But beyond that, it’s not clear how much detail for each option the ILEA will include in its final recommendations.

It’s also uncertain whether state lawmakers will adopt the ILEA’s recommendations, or whether they will flesh out the task force’s proposals through new laws or other means.

The ILEA is also weighing recommendations to change how transportation and buildings are managed. One model would create a collaborative advisory board in which schools would voluntarily work together and pay for services. The other would create an independent authority that would manage and possibly dictate services to schools.

The task force is considering both models for each of the two issues; it could recommend a collaborative board for transportation but an independent authority for buildings, for example.

The ILEA will vote to adopt final recommendations on Dec. 17.

Here are a few major unanswered questions that the alliance could address in its final recommendations — and what we know right now.

Who exactly would be in charge of schools?

The proposed collaborative compact advisory board would be made up of an unknown number of appointees from IPS, the mayor’s office, and charter schools. But how those appointees would be chosen is unclear.

Then there’s the other option, which would create the Indianapolis Education Authority. In an initial draft, that authority would have a nine-member board appointed by the mayor. The mayor would have to appoint four of the nine members from the elected IPS board.

But the draft advanced by the ILEA last week removed the requirement to have four IPS board members on the Indianapolis Education Authority, and didn’t specify who would appoint the authority’s members.

It’s also unclear how much either of those options would overlap with the ILEA’s separate recommendations for transportation and buildings.

How much power would these new authorities have?

In both governance models, the IPS board and charter school boards would still exist and report up to a new authority.

But how much power the new authority would have is unclear. It could have the power to impose and collect property taxes and authorize new charter schools. It could also set policies for all schools to ensure charter and IPS schools are held to the same standards — such as guidelines for students with disabilities or discipline.

In theory, the IPS school board and individual charter school boards could still be in charge of day-to-day school operations, including hiring and firing school leaders and superintendents or approving yearly budgets — the most important functions elected boards have.

Collaborative advisory boards for transportation and facilities could allow participating schools to agree on decisions such as transportation zones or opening or closing schools. In contrast, independent transportation or facility authorities that receive property tax dollars directly could dictate some of these decisions to the schools.

Would all students have school transportation?

It’s unclear whether all students would receive transportation to school under the ILEA’s recommendations.

There seems to be some consensus among ILEA members that to bus all students to any school they want to attend — regardless of distance — would be too costly.

But the larger unanswered question is whether all schools would be required to offer transportation to students living within a certain distance of the school.

About half of the 25 charter schools in the IPS Innovation Network use the district’s bus services. Less than half of the 29 independent charter schools provide bus service, according to a September report from the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, which authorizes charters.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, who has objected to stripping the district of its authority over transportation, said at an ILEA meeting last month that schools should be required to participate in a transportation service. She said this would address the problem that the alliance is trying to solve, which is how to ensure every school offers transportation.

If schools decline to do so, she said, then they should not receive property tax dollars earmarked for transportation.

Four other ILEA members have told Chalkbeat they would support a requirement for schools to offer transportation: Tina Ahlgren, Barato Britt, Andrew Neal, and Angela Smith-Jones.

But former mayor Bart Peterson, who’s also an ILEA member, said there would need to be limits on how far students could live from their school and still receive transportation.

Will new charter schools be allowed to open?

It’s unclear whether the ILEA will address the issue of opening new schools.

In the proposals, there’s no mention of stopping new public schools from opening in Indianapolis. But in an ILEA meeting last month, Ahlgren and Smith-Jones voiced support for a moratorium on new schools.

“We have to have a pause, because you cannot continue to have just a rolling wheel of change,” Smith-Jones said last month. “To me that feels unstable.”

In practice, such a moratorium would likely disproportionately impact charters, which have grown in number in recent years as the number of IPS-run schools have shrunk, although roughly one-third of charters have closed since 2001.

In a related matter, IPS supporters are also calling for just one charter authorizer instead of the three currently overseeing schools in Indianapolis. Charter school leaders and advocates have opposed limiting the number of authorizers and any moratorium on new schools.

Would charter schools need to give up their buildings?

Few charter schools own vehicles that transport students. But over 20 charter schools own their buildings and a little over a dozen leased them in the 2023-24 school year, according to a report from the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. Those arrangements include millions in remaining financial obligations.

It’s unclear whether the alliance will recommend that charter schools give up authority over those assets.

“How are property rights exercised by an independent authority over buildings that are owned in lots of different ways by lots of different entities?” Peterson said at the ILEA’s meeting in November.

It’s also unclear whether the ILEA will recommend the state repeal a law that allows charter schools to buy unused school buildings from IPS for $1 under certain conditions. The law has sparked conflict between IPS and charters for years.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s when the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance will meet next

2025-11-26T17:38:55+00:00

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The Indianapolis Education Alliance will meet Dec. 3 to narrow down possible recommendations for changing who oversees schools and how school buildings and buses are managed.

The meeting is from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the public assembly room of the City County Building, said Shaina Cavazos, director of the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation.

ILEA members acknowledged at their last meeting that in order to recommend changes to building and transportation management — the main task assigned to them by state lawmakers — they need to address school oversight. The group heard four options for doing so, including ones that would drastically limit the power of the elected board for Indianapolis Public Schools.

On Dec. 3, the ILEA is expected to go over the options for how to change the management of facilities, transportation, and school oversight, and narrow them down. The alliance could decide to not pick one of the presented options, and instead combine elements to create a new option, or choose something entirely different, ILEA consultant Michael O’Connor previously told Chalkbeat.

A majority of alliance members told Chalkbeat that they don’t yet have a preferred option for how to change school oversight. However, multiple members said they are considering appointed board members for schools, as well as reducing the number of charter authorizers. Other members, however, support elected school boards.

After the meeting, the ILEA will host public input sessions on the transportation, facilities, and governance models that the group likes best, before voting on its final recommendations to city and state leaders on Dec. 17.

The time and location of that meeting has not yet been announced.

Give the ILEA your feedback on the options for governance, transportation, and facilities from the November meeting here. You can also send general feedback to the ILEA by emailing ILEA@indy.gov.

Chalkbeat reporter Amelia Pak-Harvey contributed to this article.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

As ILEA discusses facilities, community members call for unification of IPS, charters under one board

2025-08-21T03:38:38+00:00

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Community members urged the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance to share data on school facilities as the state-mandated alliance pondered questions surrounding building capacity and efficiency on Wednesday.

The 103 public schools within the borders of Indianapolis Public Schools operate with a variety of different building arrangements that pose a complex challenge for the state-mandated group tasked with solving for inefficiencies across IPS and the charter sector.

Some charters that are part of the IPS Innovation Network of autonomous schools operate in IPS buildings at no cost — an in-kind service that, combined with security services, the district estimated at $38 million in 2023-24, according to a report compiled by the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. Other charters lease space, while others are co-located with another public school. Some charters have purchased their buildings, with remaining long-term debt ranging up to $22.9 million across multiple schools in the same charter network.

The findings on facility challenges for charter schools, laid out in a report submitted to the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance this week, will guide the ILEA as it considers recommendations to make to state lawmakers about the future of the city’s public schools.

At the meeting Wednesday, the group heard from IPS and charter partners about building usage as members questioned how to maximize efficiency.

Former mayor Bart Peterson, a member of the alliance, said the group must decide how to proceed with a shrinking pot of public funding.

“We are going to have to ... place efficiency pretty high on the priority list, given the environment that every public school in Marion County is going to be facing,” he said.

In public comment at the meeting, education advocates affiliated with Stand for Children Indiana — a nonprofit that has been supportive of charter schools — delivered a plan that calls for a data-driven accountability framework for all schools and the unification of all public schools under one governing board with both elected and appointed members.

“If we want to eliminate barriers, we can’t keep dividing students into separate systems,” Bony Georges, an IPS teacher who worked on the proposed plan, told the group. “The debate over charter versus traditional schools is the wrong debate. We need one public education system in Indianapolis that works for every child in every neighborhood.”

Parents affiliated with the IPS Parent Council, which has advocated strongly for traditional IPS schools, reaffirmed their call for a moratorium on new schools through 2035.

“The current system of competition and choice in schooling damages the fabric of our communities, creating a devastating dynamic where parents are pitted against each other, scrambling for increasingly scarce resources rather than uniting for a common good,” parent Katherine Harkov told the group.

With facility challenges for charters, facility costs vary

The city’s Innovation Network model and its embrace of school choice has produced a variety of different building arrangements and capacities. The OEI report included building arrangements as well as enrollment and capacity figures for charter schools.

Of the district’s 30 Innovation schools, 13 are in an IPS building, with and two are co-located in an existing IPS school, Deputy Superintendent Andrew Strope told the group Wednesday.

But beyond its partnerships with IPS, charters face a daunting challenge in trying to acquire buildings.

Different building arrangements have pros and cons, according to the OEI report. Ownership providers long-term stability, but limited access to revenue sources such as property taxes can lead to higher borrowing costs.

While leasing offers lower initial costs, it can lead to higher long-term expenditures, according to the report. And while schools operating in IPS buildings can benefit from reduced upfront costs, they have less autonomy over the buildings and less long-term security if the district does not renew legal contracts with the charter.

Charter schools that occupy IPS buildings as part of the district’s Innovation Network of autonomous schools do so at no cost. But among Innovation charters, they bore the highest average building cost per pupil at $4,476 in 2023-24, according to the OEI report.

Charters that leased their own buildings had a higher average per-pupil facility cost than those that owned them, paying $3,619 per student compared to $1,672.

Independent charters posted a lower average per-pupil building cost, with those leasing buildings paying $1,157 per student and those that owned buildings at $1,047.

Charter schools provided Enroll Indy, the city’s centralized enrollment system, with a program capacity of roughly 25,000 total seats for the 2024-25 school year, according to the report. They enrolled roughly 22,000 students.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said she hopes the ILEA recommends the repeal of the state law that requires the district to sell unused school buildings to charter schools for $1. That law only holds traditional public schools accountable for utilization rates, she said, and does not consider utilization rates for charters.

Johnson said the group must consider whether it recommends all schools operate in a way that maximizes resources — such as facility space — or whether it recommends giving schools flexibility that may let them operate in a building that is bigger than needed.

“We have to be clear on what is it that we desire to be true,” Johnson said. “That will drive how we come up with our solutions.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

IPS denies Cold Spring’s bid to become a charter school, cites ‘guiding principles’

2025-07-03T11:00:00+00:00

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Indianapolis Public Schools rejected an attempt last month by a school in its Innovation Network to convert into a charter school, citing an education policy landscape in the city that’s in flux.

The K-8 Cold Spring School, which is known for its competitive robotics team and STEM programs, had sought to amend its Innovation Network agreement with IPS so that, for the final two years of that agreement, it could operate as a charter.

Schools in the Innovation Network are independently run but receive services such as transportation and food from the district. Some innovation schools have charters, while others, like Cold Spring, do not. Schools without charters have a much closer relationship with IPS, relying on the district to provide special education and English as a Second Language services.

The decision by IPS comes amid a heated debate over how IPS and charter schools should share resources. Recent state policy changes have also shifted the balance of financial power between the two types of schools, and there has been significant tension between the two sectors in recent months.

Cold Spring primarily sought to become a charter school for financial reasons. The conversion would have afforded Cold Spring an additional $400,000 per year in funding, Chief Operating Officer Cody Stipes said. That money would have paid for a K-8 foreign language teacher, a second middle school math teacher, and a school resource officer, the school said.

Cold Spring successfully applied for a 15-year charter in May and was simply waiting on the go-ahead from IPS. School officials had spent months discussing the conversion with IPS leadership and assumed the board would approve the amended agreement. But in an email to Cold Spring leadership on June 23, the board announced it would not approve the change. The board’s decision did not involve a public vote.

In response to the crowd of Cold Spring supporters who protested the board’s decision at the June meeting, IPS board members highlighted the uncertain impact of recent policy changes on issues like property taxes, as well as a desire to limit new charter schools in the district.

“Our answer is not never, it is simply not now,” Board President Angelia Moore said. “We remain committed to partnership and leadership.”

IPS school seeks charter status for financial reasons

As a charter school, Cold Spring would be considered its own local educational agency by the state. And it would receive money directly from the state rather than through IPS’ per-student funding model, even as it remained in the Innovation Network. That and other factors would give the school a financial edge.

For the 2025-2026 school year, the IPS budget has allocated approximately $8,250 in state funding per student. But if Cold Spring were to become a charter, it would receive about $8,500 per student in basic tuition plus $1,400 per student from the Charter and Innovation Network Grant, according to Stipes.

As a charter, Cold Spring would also be eligible for many more grants, such as the federal Charter School Programs grant.

“That’s real funds that would have been able to be reinvested into Cold Spring to add a foreign language teacher, additional staff to support academic learning, and many, many more things going to students in their classrooms,” said Stipes at the June board meeting.

Other significant changes are on the way for local school funding.

Districts in Marion County are expected to lose a total of $40.4 million in local property tax revenue in 2026 and 2027 due to property tax relief pushed by Gov. Mike Braun. Changes to state tax rules will also require traditional public schools to share property tax revenue with charter schools beginning in 2028, a measure that was hotly contested.

At the same time, IPS has sought to slow the spread of charters. In the last several years, IPS enrollment has fallen while charter enrollment has risen. After IPS called for a moratorium on new charter schools in February, state lawmakers agreed to prohibit the creation of new charters within IPS borders between July and December, except for those approved by the mayor’s office.

In addition, a new advisory body, the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance, met for the first time in June to discuss how IPS and charters can effectively share resources.

Cold Spring leadership and families said granting their request wouldn’t violate IPS’ stated priorities.

Conversations about converting Cold Spring into a charter, they say, date back to February 2024, roughly a year before IPS sought the charter moratorium.

Several parents said they believe the opposition to a Cold Spring charter has become needlessly political, caught up in the debate that often pits traditional public schools against charters. In fact, making Cold Spring a charter, Stipes said, would likely benefit IPS because it would save the district costs related to special education and English as a New Language services.

Stipes said it was important to many of the families at Cold Spring that they remain in partnership with IPS. In parent town hall meetings, many asked how the move would affect the district and expressed their desire to help IPS succeed.

“This is not about walking away from IPS,” said Cold Spring parent Christine Wise. “It’s about letting a strong school grow into its next chapter.”

Nevertheless, Moore, the IPS board president, cited the district’s “guiding principles” and its desire to “remain consistent with our advocacy” when explaining its decision to reject Cold Spring’s request.

Samantha Camire is a summer reporting intern covering education in the Indianapolis area. Contact Samantha at scamire@chalkbeat.org.

You’re invited: Hear back-to-school stories from the Indianapolis community and share your own

2025-06-30T11:00:00+00:00

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Whether you’re a student, parent, or educator, the start of a new school year is filled with fresh starts and memories.

Maybe it’s the first day at a new school. Or being on the other side of things as the parent waving good-bye. Or maybe it was the start of a school year that made a big impact on you — but you didn’t know it then.

Join us for “New and Nostalgic: A back-to-school community story slam” from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 21 at the Pitch Bleachers inside the AMP at 16 Tech, 1220 Waterway Blvd.

This event is a twist on previous educator story slams — it is open to the community so students, parents, educators, and community members can all come together to tell their stories about the shared experience of back-to-school. We’ll share, connect, and learn from each other as we embark on another new school year. The story slam is co-hosted by Chalkbeat Indiana, Indy Kids Winning, and Mirror Indy.

If you are interested in participating or want to learn more about sharing your story, please fill out this form.

This event is sponsored by ClusterTruck. It’s free, but RSVP is encouraged. Get your ticket here.

Doors open at 6 p.m. Food and drink will be provided.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Local Education Alliance emphasizes collaboration, data collection, and student focus at first meeting

2025-06-26T01:26:00+00:00

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The first meeting of the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance set the stage for the group’s work, emphasizing collaboration and maintaining focus on students and their experiences while also keeping historical context and accountability in mind.

“We are here tonight to begin a new chapter of collaboration for the future of education in the city of Indianapolis,” said Mayor Joe Hogsett, chair of the ILEA, at the beginning of the meeting.

The nine-member ILEA was created by state lawmakers earlier this year and could shape the future of charter and traditional public schools in Indianapolis. The group is tasked with examining solutions for facility and transportation management across Indianapolis Public Schools and the charter schools within its borders, as well as addressing school governance structure and efforts to increase efficiency.

The group includes Hogsett and IPS superintendent Aleesia Johnson as well as their appointees and must provide a set of recommendations to IPS, city, and state leaders by the end of 2025.

The recommendations will be a “data driven and actionable plan” that will lead to a “more rational, more equitable, and more sustainable system of school facilities and transportation that benefits all students in Indianapolis,” Hogsett said.

He said the plan will be a roadmap for collaboration between schools and could include ideas such as co-locating, sharing services, and consolidating.

The ILEA will start its work with data collection and members made several requests for data during the meeting. The group could also issue a request for qualifications for an outside firm to help with that work in addition to those from IPS and the mayor’s office already working on data collection, Hogsett said, adding there would be more details about that process at the next meeting.

Johnson stressed the need to also look beyond the data to the historical context and the impact of policy decisions over decades.

“As we are collecting data and doing those things, I don’t want us to lose sight of what has happened over 50 years ago to bring us to this place today,” she said, adding that she also wants to keep in mind the collaboration that has happened.

Wednesday’s meeting included a presentation from Andrew Strope, IPS deputy superintendent, and Shaina Cavazos, director of the Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, that gave an overview of the history and the policies shaping education in the city such as the creation of Unigov in 1970, which intentionally left school districts out while unifying city-county government and the 2001 state law allowing for charter schools.

After spending the summer collecting data, the plan is to dive into the data in the fall and then spend late fall working on and refining recommendations before they are proposed by the end of the year, Hogsett said.

The introductory ILEA meeting follows a tense legislative session where the group was created, as well as a proposal aimed to dissolve IPS and replace it with charters. That bill ultimately failed, and a successful plan to redirect some property tax revenue from IPS to charters was approved. Starting in 2028, charter schools, which have grown in enrollment as IPS enrollment has dipped, will receive a portion of property tax funding that has been for traditional public schools in the past.

Money from property taxes is used by traditional school districts for operations including transportation and building maintenance. Charter school advocates have argued that the lack of property tax funding contributes to their struggle to offer transportation to students who want to attend.

And charters are tasked with finding buildings to open in. The $1 law allows charters to buy or lease vacant school buildings for $1, but is often formally challenged when schools try to use it.

During the legislative session, IPS called for a moratorium on new schools in its boundaries, and lawmakers prohibited new charters from July to December of this year, except for those schools approved by the mayor’s office.

On Tuesday, the Indianapolis Charter School Board approved Legal Prep Charter Academy to open in 2026, meaning it would be the first new school to open in Indianapolis since the end of the legislative session.

At the ILEA meeting on Wednesday, a dozen people spoke during public comment, urging the ILEA to make sure all children in Indianapolis have good schools to attend, regardless of the type. Speakers also stressed that a lack of transportation can limit school choice, asked the group to look at school collaboration models that are working, and called for greater school accountability, largely for charter schools.

They told the group it had the opportunity to change the competitive school choice environment in Indianapolis and collaborate in a way that benefits all students.

“You all are going to be asked to make some impossible decisions that will likely upset a lot of people, so thank you all for taking on that burden,” said Arion Clanton, who said he’s worked as both a teacher and a coach.

Clanton told the ILEA that solutions need to be longstanding and not one-size-fits all. He also urged the group to keep in mind the kids and families affected by the systems it is addressing.

Additional public comments submitted online were shared with the ILEA members and will be posted online, Cavazos said.

The ILEA is exempt from the state’s Open Door Law, which requires public agencies to make meetings open to the public; however, it does plan to have multiple public meetings like Wednesday’s. State law requires the group to meet publicly to vote on the final recommendations.

The next public meeting of the ILEA is 6 p.m. July 23 at the City County Building at 200 E. Washington St. A calendar of meetings and agendas is on the ILEA website.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

As Indy charter struggled, ex-CEO’s school credit card shows charges for steakhouses, wine, StubHub

2025-05-28T17:29:38+00:00

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Thousands of dollars in alcohol, travel, restaurant, and entertainment expenses were charged to the company credit card of a leader of an expanding Indianapolis charter school network who was terminated in February, according to school records.

The more than $200,000 in charges were on the card assigned to Amy Swann, who was most recently Matchbook Learning’s chief compliance officer but served as its CEO from July 2019 to around the spring of 2024. They included over $40,000 in airfare, over $3,000 in alcohol purchases, over $10,000 in restaurants, $6,091 for a luxury hotel in India — and even $1,678 in charges for sommelier courses, according to a record of charges that occurred between December 2023 and June 2024.

Matchbook officials say that some of the charges benefitted students — such as nearly $45,000 in Amazon purchases. But they say they did not know the purpose of other purchases, such as $1,080 for the Daytona International Speedway, and did not authorize spending of school funds on alcohol. They also say they were initially unaware that Swann moved to Florida in 2023, which she said she made for health reasons.

Chalkbeat obtained the credit card charges through a public records request.

The lengthy period of questionable transactions raises concerns about oversight of Indianapolis charter schools, which receive state funding like other public schools. Charters will also begin receiving local property tax revenue in the coming years through a legislative win this year that angered supporters of schools run by Indianapolis Public Schools.

Matchbook Learning took over IPS’ K-8 School 63 in 2018 as part of the district’s Innovation Network — but the turnaround strategy has largely failed to improve academic results, according to state test scores. Matchbook opened its second school, a high school, last year.

The K-8 school has one of the highest shares of students from low-income backgrounds among all schools in Marion County, according to demographic data. It is also one of the most underperforming schools in the city, according to state math and reading test scores.

Swann was officially let go through a board vote terminating her employment with cause in February, records show — only about two months after Matchbook received a renewal of its charter from Mayor Joe Hogsett’s Office of Education Innovation in December 2024.

Swann, who was a 2017 fellow with the Indianapolis-based non-profit the Mind Trust along with Matchbook founder Sajan George, had been with the school for over a decade. She oversaw the K-8 school and the construction of the new high school.

She said that some of the expenses the board said weren’t authorized were for school purposes, such as alcohol for staff events and dinners with board members and vendors. Others she said were accidental, such as the trip to India. Swann said she reimbursed the school for the cost of the hotel for that trip, which the school confirmed. The sommelier charges, Swann said, stemmed from plans to do wine-based fundraisers for Matchbook. (Matchbook board minutes from August 2024 indicate the board discussed “Wine + Welding” when reviewing possibilities for investor tours and events.)

Swann also said multiple people had access to the card, and that she did not review bank statements. She said some charges she was not aware of — such as $1,629 for Stubhub and $915 to Ticketmaster — and that these might have been fraud. But according to the school, the records reviewed by Chalkbeat were only for a card number assigned to Swann. While Swann could have given her card to others, she was not supposed to, said Matchbook Learning Chief Operating Officer Don Stewart.

“I’m happy. I’m actually a lot better off,” Swann said of her termination from Matchbook. “Now I feel like I’m going to be made out to be this evil person.”

George, now chair of the Matchbook board, said he couldn’t elaborate on Swann’s termination, but that the spending in the expense reports was a factor. He said Swann’s role with the school was scheduled to end in April, but that the school terminated Swann in February in part for the unauthorized trip to India that included the luxury hotel stay, a timeline that Swann confirmed. Swann did not have approval to take time off or charge her company card for that trip, George said.

“You’re catching us where we should be, which is we took action on the things,” George said. “And honestly, if we had known some of these things, we might have taken that action earlier.”

It’s not clear whether the school will seek to recoup any of the other costs.

George also said school leaders were unaware of Swann’s move to Florida in 2023 and that it was among the reasons the network changed her title last summer from CEO to chief compliance officer. Swann said the title change occurred because she moved to Florida.

The 2024 charter renewal process included a review of financial information, such as the school’s annual audited financial statements, according to the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. Officials there were aware of a “leadership transition” at Matchbook but were not made aware of “spending concerns” until after Swann was terminated in February, according to an OEI spokesperson.

George denied that the charter school waited to terminate Swann until after the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation renewed its charter to avoid disrupting that process. George said that the school’s authorizer was aware that Swann had moved to Florida and that the school had new leadership.

Charter school leader took frequent flights from Florida

The more than $40,000 for airfare on the credit card is the one of the largest categories of spending.

Much of that, George said, was to pay for Swann’s commuting expenses between Indiana and Florida, where she moved in the summer of 2023.

The board initially did not realize that Swann moved to Florida, he said, but agreed to retain her until she could finish some of her assigned projects — like the construction of the new high school. George said Swann flew from Florida to Indianapolis once or twice per month.

Swann said she moved to Florida in the summer of 2023 for health reasons, and in part due to a shooting that affected the school community in March 2023.

During that shooting, which occurred after a school basketball game, two gunmen targeted a Matchbook student. Swann said she walked toward two gang members with guns out who came into the gym looking for the student and convinced them to leave.

Swann said that some airfare charges were also for school board members who live out of state to travel to Indiana. State law does not have any residency requirements for charter school board members.

George said the school began to notice that the charges for the flights were not the least expensive possible, as required by the school’s policy. Among the travel expenses is a nearly $1,500 charge for the Delta lounge.

Still, George said it was important to the school to retain Swann because of her long tenure with Matchbook Learning, and because of the ongoing construction project she was overseeing. But after it became clear she would not return, the school changed Swann’s title and duties.

“School leadership is not a remote or hybrid job,” George said.

In the public records obtained by Chalkbeat, the school listed Swann’s salary at $187,000.

Swann is the third Mind Trust fellow to attract controversy in recent years.

In 2019, the nonprofit ended its fellowship with Tariq Al-Nasir after Chalkbeat uncovered his financial troubles and questionable academic credentials. A school launched by another Mind Trust fellow, Shy-Quon Ely, also faced a discrimination lawsuit in 2021 before the IPS school board voted to remove it from the Innovation Network later that year. The school later settled the lawsuit for $48,500, according to WRTV. The Mind Trust later supported the district’s decision.

In a statement, Mind Trust spokesperson Kateri Whitley said the vast majority of the organization’s more than 80 fellows have a “strong track record of leadership for the students and families they serve.”

The Mind Trust “had no knowledge of any allegations of misspending” regarding Swann, Whitley said, and noted that the group had no formal relationship with her once her fellowship ended in 2018.

“As with any school, whether it be traditional, charter, or private, we strongly believe excessive spending for travel, meals, and other expenses that are not directly related to student learning are not prudent uses of school funds,” the statement said. It also said the organization supports the Matchbook Learning board’s decision to terminate Swann’s employment if they found misconduct.

Charter school founder: Ex-CEO lacked good judgment

The credit card charges include roughly $1,525 for two meals at Harry and Izzy’s, $2,076 for two visits to Ruth’s Chris Steak House, and nearly $1,600 in charges to seafood restaurants in Florida.

Swann attributed these costs to meals with community partners, vendors, and staff.

She attributed roughly $1,343 spent at a Florida Costco to materials she would purchase for the school to later bring up in her suitcase for events. And while she was uncertain about charges totaling $1,080 for Daytona International Speedway, she later said that the school explored partnerships with Indy Car and NASCAR.

The card records also show charges to wine stores like Vivino and Total Wine in the first six months of 2024. These purchases were made after George told school leaders to stop paying for alcohol on the school’s tab in 2023, said Stewart, Matchbook Learning’s chief operating officer.

“It’s fair to say that any alcohol charges on the credit card after that were against what the board’s directive was to myself and the leaders in the school,” Stewart said.

But Swann said the policy not to purchase alcohol for staff was adopted after the charges, in the summer of 2024.

George and Stewart also said that board dinners took place once a year and only in Indianapolis. But the card charges include dozens of dinners at higher-end restaurants in Indianapolis and Florida.

Swann said the charges for high-end Indianapolis restaurants were for when board members who live outside of Indianapolis would come to visit, or to celebrate when teachers made good academic progress or other milestones. The Florida dining charges, she said, were for when community partners, vendors, and other people the school was working with would visit the state.

George said he was unaware of some of these charges until Chalkbeat highlighted them, adding that “we just don’t look at that level of detail” with the credit card statement. Yet he indicated the school previously had some concerns that led to Swann’s change of roles at the school.

“The details might be surprising or unknown to me previously, but the general lack of transparency and good judgment is not new to me, which is why we made those [title] changes,” George said.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Legal Prep among charter schools seeking approval in Indianapolis

2025-04-25T21:32:02+00:00

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This story was originally published by Mirror Indy.

Several new charter schools could open soon in Indianapolis. But first, they’ll have to get the approval of an authorizer. And authorization hearings start this month.

The hearings come at a tense time for public schools in Indianapolis. Just weeks ago, Gov. Mike Braun signed legislation requiring IPS and other traditional public school districts to share property taxes with charter schools.

The bill’s passage came following a divisive stretch of debate where parents felt compelled to testify at school board meetings and Statehouse hearings in support of their preferred schools. It also led to calls for a pause on new charter schools in the city.

All Indianapolis schools appearing before the city and state charter boards this spring seek to discuss proposals within the Indianapolis Public Schools district boundaries.

At least one school hopes to become a charter because of the new financial incentives made available by property tax sharing.

Here’s what to watch.

What is charter school authorization?

Charter schools are tuition-free, nonreligious public schools that are independent of local school districts. They’re operated by their own nonprofit boards of directors that oversee hiring and firing, curriculum approval, and the budget.

As an added layer of oversight, these schools are also responsive to an authorizer. Authorizers hold a charter contract with schools that sets targets for everything from academic progress to financial standing.

Most schools are granted a multi-year contract with opportunities to renew after several years. And authorizers generally conduct public hearings when they consider new and renewed contracts. If the authorizer feels a school is not meeting expectations, it can withdraw its support, which often leads to a school’s closure.

Most charter schools in Indianapolis are overseen by one of two charter authorizers: the Indianapolis Charter School Board and the Indiana Charter School Board.

Both have upcoming public hearings as part of their routine application cycle. These meetings offer the public a chance to learn about new school concepts in their community and to express their support or concern for charter schools in their neighborhood.

There are several applications worth watching in Indianapolis this year. They range from proposals to merge or reorganize existing schools to the formation of completely new schools.

Indianapolis Charter School Board to consider 3 applications

The Indianapolis Charter School Board is a nine-member board staffed and supported by the Indianapolis mayor’s Office of Education Innovation.

The board is made up of six mayoral appointees and three members appointed by the City-County Council.

They will meet next at 6 p.m. April 29 to hear proposals both from new and returning schools.

New schools, which have only submitted a pre-application at this point, could be invited back to present their full application in a second hearing at 6 p.m. June 24. Both meetings will be in the City-County Building, 200 E. Washington St.

Schools that have submitted materials to the city charter board this spring include:

Legal Prep Charter Academy

The founder of Legal Prep Charter Academy — a legal-themed high school in Chicago — has submitted a proposal to open a school near Monument Circle. The Indianapolis school would serve students in grades six through 12.

The school seeks to teach students core subjects alongside a law-based curriculum offering dual credit opportunities in classes like Legal Writing and Intro to Criminology. In documents submitted to the city, the school’s founder said he plans to recruit students of color from low-income backgrounds — who are generally underrepresented in the legal profession.

The school projects it will enroll between 170 and 225 students in its first year, scaling up to no more than 825 students by its fourth year. The proposed school seeks to open fall 2026, but doesn’t have an exact location yet.

School leaders are weighing possibilities downtown that would put students within walking distance of internships that leaders envision offering through partnerships with nearby legal firms. Leaders expect to have a location decided by the time they submit a full application for the city charter board’s review.

View Legal Prep Charter Academy’s pre-application here.

Indiana Math and Science Academy

Indiana Math and Science Academy is seeking to expand to a third campus near Haughville. The STEM-focused school has two campuses on the north and west sides already authorized by the Indianapolis Charter School Board.

The academy plans to serve 210 K-6 graders in its first year, adding a grade level each year after to eventually grow into a full K-12 school. It’s seeking to open by fall 2026 and its leaders have a location in mind — 2447 W. 14th St. The building, which long ago served as IPS School 75, was more recently used by Vanguard Collegiate Prep, a northwest side charter school that abruptly moved and closed two years ago due to underenrollment.

In their application, Indiana Math and Science Academy leaders said they intend to work with a charter school development facilitator who would purchase the building from its current owner and lease it back to the school. Leaders included a support letter from the building’s current owner, Centro de Avivamiento Casa de Dios y Luz para las Naciones, in their application.

The leaders addressed concern about the previous school’s underenrollment in their application. Leaders said Indiana Math and Science Academy’s STEM-friendly focus would help it stand out from established charter schools like Christel House Academy West, Allegiant Preparatory Academy and Indianapolis Metropolitan High School — all of which share the 46222 ZIP Code.

The application writers did not make note of The Match — a new charter high school and career center that’s finishing out its first year in the same neighborhood. Indiana Math and Science Academy’s parent company closed a school on the south side in 2017 due to underenrollment.

View Indiana Math and Science Academy’s charter application here.

Victory College Prep

Victory College Prep on the southeast side is applying to restructure during an expansion into a newly purchased building.

Victory College Prep’s proposal seeks to divide its existing K-12 school, which is already authorized by the city, into distinct elementary, middle, and high schools. The elementary and middle schools would operate out of Victory College Prep’s Sloan Avenue campus. The high school would move into a new space as early as this fall.

The proposal comes as part of a tense transition in which Victory College Prep made an offer in October to buy a school building that’s still being used by someone else. The school currently in the building — Bethel Park Elementary — is also a charter school that uses the city board as its authorizer.

The city authorizer, however, had concerns about that school’s finances and decided in January it would revoke its authorization at the end of the school year. Though city officials encouraged collaboration between the schools early on, Bethel Park leaders resisted what they saw as a conclusion that had already been made for them.

Victory College Prep closed its $2.8 million purchase of the Bethel Park building in February and now plans to use the building as its new high school. School leaders aim to renovate the building this summer in time to welcome high schoolers to the building this fall.

View Victory College Prep’s middle school application here and its high school application here.

Indiana Charter School Board to consider 2 applications

The Indiana Charter School Board is also a nine-member board. It’s staffed and supported by state employees.

Four members are appointed by the governor, one by Indiana’s secretary of education and four others by leaders in the Indiana General Assembly.

The board has two vacancies and appointed a new executive director in a short meeting last month.

The state board will next meet at 1 p.m. May 8 in Conference Rooms 4 and 5 in Wabash Hall of the Indiana Government Center South, 302 W. Washington St.

Two applications from the Indianapolis area appear on the board’s agenda for its May 8 meeting. Those schools include:

Circle City Prep, a K-8 school just south of Lawrence and ACE Prep, a K-6 charter school south of Broad Ripple want to merge.

ACE Prep/Circle City Prep

ACE Prep, a K-6 charter school south of Broad Ripple, is seeking to merge with another charter school, Circle City Prep, a K-8 school just south of Lawrence.

Both schools share the Indiana Charter School Board as their authorizer. Circle City Prep proposes in the schools’ merger application to help ACE Prep become financially sustainable.

In its initial 2015 application to become an authorized charter school, ACE Prep proposed a K-5 school that would scale up to 432 students over five years. The school had only 129 students enrolled earlier this spring. Nearby Circle City Prep has more than 400 students.

If merged, ACE Prep would continue operating as a K-6 school under Circle City Prep’s management. ACE Prep students will be guaranteed placement for seventh and eighth grade classes at Circle City Prep’s campus near 42nd Street and Franklin Road.

View the schools’ merger application here.

Cold Spring School

Already open as a K-8 IPS Innovation School, Cold Spring School wants to transition into a charter school. The school is highly regarded for its competitive robotics team, STEM programming, and 39-acre campus near the Marian University campus.

The school has been run by a nonprofit board for the last nine years and operates with administrative independence from IPS, meaning its leaders do their own hiring and set their own lesson plans. The school does, however, operate out of a building owned by IPS and uses the district’s transportation services — both of which the school hopes to continue using after its proposed transition.

Cold Spring School leaders said in their charter application that they want to be a charter school because of the financial benefits. They project becoming a charter school could bring a $400,000 annual surplus. That’s more than the $50,000 surplus leaders say they collect under their current school structure.

In their application, submitted earlier this year, Cold Spring School leaders also cite untapped grant opportunities available only to charter schools and a desire to collect on IPS’ property tax sharing with charter schools — a hotly contested idea just made possible through a bill signed by Gov. Mike Braun on April 15.

View Cold Spring School’s charter application here.

Mirror Indy reporter Carley Lanich covers early childhood and K-12 education. Contact her at carley.lanich@mirrorindy.org or follow her on X @carleylanich.

Edison School of the Arts, ex-CEO reach deal to end lawsuit tied to firing, racial slur claims

2025-04-21T18:54:28+00:00

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The former CEO of Edison School of the Arts who sued the school over defamation after his termination in 2023 has reached a deal with the school to receive a judgment of about $269,000 in his favor.

The judgment that both parties agreed to, which was finalized in federal court last week, marks an end to a lawsuit Nathan Tuttle brought against certain Edison staff members and the school.

Tuttle filed the lawsuit last year after the school board terminated his employment following allegations that he used a racial slur when speaking with students in March 2023. Tuttle later said that he did not direct the slur at students, but was speaking to a student who had used a racial slur and told that student not to do so.

“This judgment affirms what we have maintained from the outset: that Mr. Tuttle was treated unfairly and in violation of his civil rights,” Tuttle and his attorney, Chip Clark, said in a statement. “While no monetary compensation can undo the pain and disruption caused by Edison’s actions, the outcome offers a meaningful sense of validation and accountability.”

Through a spokesperson, the Edison board declined to comment. The K-8 school on the west side is part of the Indianapolis Public Schools network of autonomous Innovation schools — one of the few that is not a charter school but is run by a nonprofit with its own board.

Tuttle now serves as principal at the K-8 Matchbook Learning school, which is also in the IPS Innovation Network.

The allegations against Tuttle generated a public outcry. During a lengthy public meeting a few days after the March 2023 incident, parents, students, and staff described a hostile working environment under Tuttle and his administration. Edison’s board fired Tuttle roughly two weeks after the allegations came to light.

Tuttle’s lawsuit, which alleged defamation and discrimination, claimed that the school board allowed defamatory statements about his character at the meeting. His complaint also alleged that certain school staff also allowed students to chant homophobic slurs aimed at Tuttle, who is gay, during a protest.

In addition, the lawsuit claimed the school deprived Tuttle of due process by ending his three-year contract without a termination hearing and the opportunity to correct any issues.

Tuttle’s job status at Innovation Network school disputed

Part of the parties’ disagreement stemmed from the state’s law on Innovation Network schools, which operate autonomously.

The school previously argued that Tuttle was an at-will employee of the nonprofit that operates Edison as an Innovation School, which by state law is exempt from a number of state statutes that are applicable to traditional public school districts.

But the lawsuit claimed that before he was fired, the school’s leadership team changed Tuttle’s status from being an at-will employee to a contracted one, a change that included statutory due process rights if his contract were terminated.

The complaint initially listed IPS as a defendant, but the district was later dropped from the lawsuit, according to court filings. Two current and former Edison employees were also dropped from the lawsuit.

In the judgment, both parties agreed that Tuttle would not receive compensation for any of his claims against the three remaining Edison staff members named in the lawsuit.

The judgment includes $211,500 for Tuttle and $57,718 in attorney’s fees.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

The Indianapolis teachers union wants a freeze on new charter contracts. Some parents disagree.

2025-03-21T02:11:09+00:00

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The Indianapolis Education Association delivered a petition to the school board on Thursday to enact a moratorium on any new agreements with charter schools, joining calls for a pause on charter schools’ growth in the city.

The petition from the local teachers union, which collected over 1,200 signatures, also demands that the board rescind a resolution passed last summer that reaffirmed the need for the board to collaborate with schools of all types.

“We see the action that has come out so far – all of the statements — but we need real action and real policy to sit behind it,” IEA vice president Monica Shelhammer told the board during public comment.

The school board’s latest meeting was similar to other contentious public meetings over the past few months that have largely pitted traditional public school proponents against charter school advocates. A big part of what’s driving the ill-will is Senate Bill 518, which would require the district to share property tax revenues with charter schools — a financial drain that the district said would force it to close multiple schools of its own. Charter advocates say the bill would provide more equitable funding for students.

Different entities have different types of authority over new charter schools in Indianapolis.

Charter authorizers grant new charter schools permission to open, and schools have their own boards. But the IPS school board has the power to approve contracts with autonomously run schools in its Innovation Network, most of which are charter schools. The network allows schools to run their operations independently from the central office while also utilizing district services, which can include transportation for some charter schools.

The board last approved a renewal of six Innovation agreements — five of which were for charter schools — in November. The newest Innovation charter school is Believe Circle City High School, which joined the network this school year.

Several parents and community members urged board members to cooperate with charter schools on Thursday.

Sashah Fletcher, the parent of a charter student at Purdue Polytechnic High School in the Innovation Network, asked the board to collaborate with charter schools in providing transportation solutions for charter schools that don’t offer it.

“We did struggle to alter schedules at times and make sure that my son could continue to attend the school that he wanted to be at,” Fletcher said.

A bill that would have required the district to share transportation resources with charters didn’t advance earlier this session. But Rep. Robert Behning, the Indianapolis Republican who authored the bill, told Chalkbeat he intends to insert language from that bill into other legislation.

Earlier in the day before the school board meeting, Democratic state lawmakers at the statehouse spoke to students during a “day of action” hosted by IPS, urging them to fight for their public schools.

“Send the message that you’re proud of IPS, that you don’t want your needs to be ignored while we fight about money,” Rep. Ed DeLaney, an Indianapolis Democrat, told the crowd. “Let’s fight about you and your future.”

Emma Wulf, a senior at George Washington High School, stood at one table writing a letter to Republican Sen. Linda Rogers — an author of Senate Bill 518 — to share her love of the district-run school’s programs and her opposition to the legislation.

“I grew up from a single mother well under the poverty line,” Wulf wrote. “If not for IPS my mother would have struggled to provide me with such an enriching and caring education.”

The legislative session ends April 29.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Future of property tax revenue for IPS and charter schools fuels intense debate

2025-02-28T04:09:13+00:00

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Discussion of legislation that would require Indianapolis Public Schools to share property tax revenue with charter schools dominated the roughly two hours of public comment at the Indianapolis Public Schools board meeting on Thursday.

The debate over Senate Bill 518, which the state Senate has passed, underscores the tensions between IPS and the charter school community. House lawmakers have also adopted a budget proposal to cut property taxes, which would also affect district revenue.

Nearly 100 people signed up to speak. Speakers advocated for and against the bill, as well as for and against charter schools. However, the loudest applause came for those speaking against the bill and urging the board to take a stronger stance against it.

Ahead of public comment, board members Allissa Impink and Gayle Cosby, said they oppose Senate Bill 518 and that it is part of a larger effort to defund public schools by making traditional public schools and charter schools compete for the same funding.

Impink said the statehouse can fully fund schools and that the community must call on lawmakers to do so.

Cosby said the bill “has all of us collectively sinking in the same leaky boat.”

Public speakers discuss funding levels, school resources

It’s unclear how much revenue IPS would lose under the proposed Senate bill. The district would need to share certain revenue streams, such as any future voter-approved referendums, as early as 2026. But perhaps the largest chunk of funding would come from the district’s operating revenues, which the district would have to share beginning in 2028.

Several speakers made comments similar to those from Cosby and Impink.

Parent Simona Santabarbara said she was against the bill, but not against charter school families. She said that the children are watching how this moment is handled.

“The stakes are too high for us to not fight together,” Santabarbara said.

However, the majority of speakers either spoke for or against the bill or charter schools in general.

Speakers opposed to the bill said they worried it would lead to program cuts and school closures.

Monica Shellhamer, a teacher at Christian Park School 82, asked the board to take action against the bill, not just talk.

“We need action to make sure all our students have the resources we need,” she said.

But speakers backing the bill said it would allow schools to be funded equally, and said additional funding would allow charter schools to offer transportation, making them more accessible to more families.

Those who advocated for charters also stressed they felt ignored by the board.

LaToya Tahirou, a parent associated with Stand for Children, said she’s about promoting schools that close the opportunity gaps and allowing for families to choose. She added that she sees “more division being created when we need to come together and let everyone be heard.”

Some also raised the issue of advocacy groups. Those against charter schools urged the board not to negotiate with groups that support charter schools. Some called out the Mind Trust, Stand for Children, and RISE Indy — groups that run their own programs and also support charter schools — for the division.

Stand for Children and RISE Indy have political action committees that have also donated tens of thousands to IPS school board races.

In a statement after the meeting, the Mind Trust said it supports calls “from parents, students, and community members for IPS leadership and board members to collaborate with charter schools to strengthen our city’s public school system so that all students have the resources they need.”

RISE Indy also stressed the importance of providing resources for all kids, and said they will continue to fight for those “who have been deprioritized.”

In addition to the bill requiring IPS to share property tax revenue, lawmakers introduced a bill that would dissolve IPS and its elected school board and replace it with charter schools overseen by an appointed board. They also floated a bill to remove the district’s power over transportation and facilities.

Those bills hadn’t advanced by the midpoint of this year’s legislative session, although lawmakers could incorporate the same bill language into other legislation later in the session.

Some say IPS should reconsider charter collaboration

Some asked the board to rescind a resolution that reaffirmed its commitment to collaboration with charters, which the school board approved in May.

That resolution came after significant pressure from pro-charter parents, who last year demanded that IPS partner with more charter schools where students of color are successful.

Several speakers also called for a moratorium on new schools. Last week, the school board called for a moratorium on new schools in the area for the next two years. IPS officials have stressed that splitting revenue among over 100 schools within district boundaries will result in no school truly receiving enough.

Charter school authorizers are ultimately responsible for approving new charters in Indianapolis. Authorizers that have approved schools within IPS borders in recent years include Mayor Joe Hogsett’s Office of Education Innovation, the Indiana Charter School Board, Ball State University, and Education One at Trine University.

But charter leaders have argued that additional funds to charter schools will help pay for higher teacher salaries and better transportation. Groups advocating for charters opposed a moratorium, arguing that charters have delivered better results for families while also having to operate with significantly less public revenue than IPS.

Charter supporters have also pointed out that IPS recently launched new schools.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

IPS enrollment falls by over 3% in district-run schools after middle school changes

2025-01-08T17:21:47+00:00

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Indianapolis Public Schools enrollment has dropped by roughly 3.7% in schools it manages directly since last school year.

The decline of roughly 800 students was driven almost entirely by falling middle school enrollment. IPS enrollment in the district’s non-charter schools now stands at 21,055, according to state data released last month. In grades 6-8, the decline was 778 students.

Enrollment in charter schools that are part of the district’s Innovation Network of autonomous schools grew by 717 students, shoring up the district’s total enrollment across all school types. Yet total enrollment including Innovation charters still dropped slightly, from 32,212 to 32,126.

The enrollment loss turns up the pressure on IPS in several ways. It means less per-pupil state funding for a district already facing a challenging future. IPS already grapples with a robust school choice environment that is only growing. It faces a fiscal cliff once additional property taxes from the 2018 operating referendum expire in 2026. The decline could draw more scrutiny of the district’s Rebuilding Stronger reorganization that relies heavily on changes to middle schools.

And as the state’s legislative session begins, charter advocates and lawmakers are calling for changes that could wreck the district financially — or even force the district to dissolve entirely, as one bill calls for. The school board, meanwhile, has been meeting regularly in executive session to discuss school consolidation since November.

Still, the district said in a statement that it believes middle school enrollment will rebound, just as high school enrollment has increased to a higher figure than before the 2018 closure and consolidation of several high schools.

And while the district said it expected a decrease in the number of middle school students due to the creation of standalone middle schools, it said middle school enrollment has been trending upward since the statewide count day in October. The data released last month comes from data from count day, the day when schools must record enrollment under state law.

“We’re going to be working very hard to make sure our families continue to see the value of what those middle schools are offering,” said Deputy Superintendent Andrew Strope.

IPS hopes to examine middle schooler departures

Even before the pandemic that exacerbated enrollment declines nationwide, IPS steadily lost students annually at rates of around 3% to 4% from 2016 to 2020.

The district’s Rebuilding Stronger plan adopted in 2022 represents an attempt to right-size the district and spread resources more equitably amid enrollment declines. It includes breaking up K-6 and K-8 schools to once again create standard middle schools for grades 6-8.

But the reconfiguration sparked opposition, particularly from parents of the district’s choice magnet schools who favored the K-8 model. The middle school configuration had a rocky rollout this year — most notably at Broad Ripple Middle School, where over 100 students left after parents complained of an unsafe environment, a lack of communication, and general disorganization.

Still, officials consider Rebuilding Stronger’s expansion of popular academic programs and extracurricular offerings a positive change.

“It is difficult that we lost that many students,” said Patrick Herrell, the district’s director of enrollment. “But in my mind, it is much more important that now all students get this opportunity, and we can build on that success and start growing our numbers.”

At district-run schools, there was a net gain of six students at the elementary school level from last year, in part due to growth in prekindergarten. IPS lost 24 students at the high school level.

The district also considers enrollment at its Innovation Network charter schools as a positive. The district counts the enrollment and test scores at these schools as part of its own, although the Indiana Department of Education separates the two.

IPS said in its statement that schools are increasing recruitment and retention efforts for rising middle school students, including field trips to potential schools for fifth graders.

“Middle school principals have been meeting with families at 5th grade feeder schools, and the district is following up with all middle school families who left the district to better understand their experiences and ensure the improvements we make address families’ needs and concerns as we try to bring families back into IPS,” the district said.

Charter school enrollment is stagnant

Enrollment at charter schools not affiliated with IPS changed minimally, dropping by 46 students from 2023-24. The figure includes charters in IPS borders or those outside of the district that still enroll a majority of IPS students. It excludes adult high schools and blended or virtual schools.

The demographics between charter schools and traditional IPS schools continue to differ slightly. IPS educates a lower percentage of Black students and students receiving free or reduced-price meals than the charter sector, but has a higher rate of students with disabilities.

Upcoming legislative session could pose threat to IPS

Several proposals in the state legislature could compound the district’s problems.

A bill from Republican Rep. Jake Teshka of North Liberty would require districts in which more than half of students living within the district boundaries enroll in a school not operated by the district to dissolve. It would also require those districts’ schools to transition into charter schools. The bill, HB 1136, would in practice dissolve IPS and four other districts statewide, according to its latest fiscal impact statement.

And a new charter advocacy group, the Indiana Charter Innovation Center, will push for charters to receive the same amount of funding from property taxes as traditional district schools receive. IPS is already required to share a portion of property tax revenue with charters — a cost previously estimated at $4 million for this school year — but the proposal would reduce the district’s operating revenue even further.

School board members decried the bill to dissolve the district, saying in a statement on Tuesday that it would destabilize the district’s financial foundation and jeopardize the education of tens of thousands of students.

Teshka’s bill “threatens to cause massive disruption to our public school system, diverting attention and resources away from the vital education and support our students need to succeed,” Board President Angelia Moore said at the meeting.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

IPS board renews agreements with six Innovation Network schools

2024-11-22T15:48:22+00:00

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The Indianapolis Public Schools board approved renewal of agreements with six schools in the district’s autonomous Innovation Network on Thursday.

The 6-0 approval extends the district’s relationship with the schools — most of which are charters — until June 2030. Innovation schools contract with the district for various services such as transportation and facilities.

Academic results for the six schools — Adelante Schools, Enlace Academy, the PATH School, Phalen Leadership Academies at School 48, Phalen Leadership Academies at School 103, and Sankofa School of Success — are mixed. While some show proficiency rates on the state’s ILEARN and IREAD tests that are above similar schools or IPS as a whole, others fall below those averages.

The Innovation agreement for Christel House South and Christel House Watanabe High School, both housed on the former Emmerich Manual High School campus, automatically renew without a board vote per the Christel House network’s original agreement with the district.

Board member Will Prichard said it’s an exciting time for IPS to renew the agreements.

“Each of these schools, at least the ones that I’ve been to, offer something unique. They have different, unique strengths. They serve, in some cases, very different populations,” he said. “There’s an immense amount of talent at these schools, and it’s really a privilege for IPS I think to be exposed and a partner with a lot of these schools.”

Board members also acknowledged the need to monitor academic performance where necessary.

Board member Nicole Carey, who still voted to approve the agreements, also noted that the board needs to see progress at particular schools.

“I was pleased to hear that there’s partnership in being able to follow up and monitor in some of our schools,” she said.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org

IPS staff recommend five-year renewal of six Innovation Network schools

2024-11-20T22:02:21+00:00

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Indianapolis Public Schools central office officials have recommended renewing partnerships with six autonomous schools in the district’s Innovation Network that have shown mixed academic outcomes.

The school board on Thursday will consider approving five-year renewals through the 2029-30 school year for Adelante Schools, Enlace Academy, The PATH School, Phalen Leadership Academies at School 48, Phalen Leadership Academies at School 103, and Sankofa School of Success. The agreement with Christel House South and Watanabe High Schools is automatically renewed without a board vote, per the charter network’s existing Innovation contract with IPS.

When created by state law in 2014, Innovation schools were a solution to state intervention for chronically underperforming schools. They were also an attempt to quell the discord between the district and its biggest competitor, the growing charter school sector. The schools, many of which are charters, have operational autonomy and can contract with IPS for various services, including transportation and maintenance. They often operate in IPS school buildings. The district can also count Innovation schools’ student enrollment and test scores as its own.

The recommendation comes as the district once again changes its approach to Innovation Network schools. This year, it launched a streamlined application process. The district also changed the pathways by which Innovation schools can launch, eliminating the “jumpstart” and “restart” path for operators who want to turn around an existing underperforming school.

Innovation schools are central to the district’s ongoing relationship with charters, which has become a key point of contention in recent years as charters have demanded more property tax funding from the district and IPS has tried to prevent its unused buildings from going to charter schools. Currently, there are roughly 30 Innovation schools in the district.

The schools up for renewal this week served a total of roughly 3,900 students last year and show varying levels of increased, decreased, or stagnant test results in the years immediately preceding and following the pandemic, as compared to similar schools and measured by the state’s third grade IREAD test, the ILEARN test for grades 3-8, and SAT rates.

Restart schools have shown a similar mixed bag of results with little to no improvement in test scores, according to a previous Chalkbeat Indiana analysis.

While the K-8 data “hasn’t necessarily had a significant impact” from an academic standpoint on overall scores, Innovation high schools have boosted IPS graduation rates and SAT scores, Brian Dickey, the executive director of the district’s school portfolio who oversees Innovation partnerships, told the school board in August.

Renewal recommendations also take into account factors such as staff retention, school culture, enrollment, and overall family satisfaction.

The new Innovation contracts for charter schools — which include all schools up for renewal except for Sankofa — also change a previous clause allowing termination of the partnership due to academic performance. The district can end the agreement if a school fails to meet a majority of set educational goals — such as growth and proficiency on the ILEARN — for at least two consecutive years.

Here is academic data for the schools up for renewal:

Adelante Schools at Emma Donnan

The K-8 Adelante Schools at Emma Donnan on the southeast side, launched as a restart school in 2020-21, has slightly outperformed the average of the district’s entire portfolio of schools on ILEARN. The portfolio, which includes charter schools, had an overall proficiency of roughly 19% in English and around 17% in math for 2023-24.

The school had a roughly 14-point increase in IREAD pass rates from 2022-23 to 2023-24, with about 72% passing.

Suspension and expulsion rates, however, have historically been higher than those in the district, according to an analysis of state data by the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation.

The school’s new Innovation agreement allows both Adelante and IPS to engage in “good faith” discussions for the potential sale or transfer of the Emma Donnan building to Adelante, which is interested in acquiring the facility at the end of the Innovation contract in 2030.

Christel House South and Watanabe High School

The K-8 Christel House South school, which joined the Innovation Network in 2020-21 and operates out of the former Emmerich Manual High School, shows English and math proficiency rates at 15% for 2023-24. Those fall below the IPS portfolio average as well as rates for comparative schools, which show roughly 20% proficiency in math and 17% in English.

IREAD pass rates have historically been above the IPS average, although they declined by 17 percentage points to 70% in 2023-24. That’s still well above the district’s pass rate of about 60%.

But Christel House Watanabe High School, which operates at the same location, had higher rates of English and math proficiency on the SAT compared to the district’s four traditional public high schools. Those rates stood at 36% for English and 11% for math, compared to the district’s roughly 21% for English and 5% for math.

Enlace Academy

Academic data at Enlace Academy, a K-8 school in the district’s west side International Marketplace neighborhood, has dropped over the past five years, according to the district.

Proficiency rates on the ILEARN, which were roughly 8% for English and roughly 9% in math, fall below the aggregate rates of comparative schools showing about 13% in English and 12% in math. IREAD pass rates inched up from 38.7% to 40.5% in 2023-24, but still fell below the roughly 49% aggregate pass rate of similar schools as well as the roughly 60% IPS average.

But the school has consistently strong attendance rates and family engagement with a welcoming culture, IPS officials noted. Its attendance rate is consistently one of the highest across the Innovation Network at around 94% last year.

The school’s new innovation agreement also allows for a potential sale or transfer of the school building to Enlace. The agreement also reduces the $300,000 that the district has historically given the school for transportation. Since charter schools in Marion County now receive a portion of property taxes for operations, part of those proceeds will count toward the district’s transportation payment.

The PATH School

ILEARN scores at the K-8 PATH School on the west side have increased since it joined the Innovation Network in 2020-21, with proficiency rates above the district’s cohort of chronically underperforming “emerging” schools, according to the district.

ILEARN English proficiency rates for the school stood at around 15% for English and 10% for math, above the emerging school average of roughly 10% for English math. IREAD pass rates have also steadily recovered from the post-pandemic dip to roughly 52%.

Attendance rates are still below what they were before becoming a restart school.

Phalen Leadership Academies at School 48

English and math proficiency rates at the K-6 Phalen Leadership Academies at School 48 have steadily increased since joining the Innovation Network as a restart school in 2020-21. They stand at around 13% for English and 20% for math, rates that surpass the emerging school averages that hover around 10%.

IREAD pass rates have improved since COVID but dropped to 60% in 2023-24.

Enrollment, however, has declined since 2022-23 to 253, below the 311 students it had in 2018-19 before it became a charter school, according to the district.

Phalen Leadership Academies at School 103

ILEARN math proficiency rates at the K-6 Phalen Leadership Academies at School 103 on the Far Eastside are at 14%, higher than the emerging schools average, according to the district.

But its English achievement levels, once above comparative schools, have declined to roughly 8%. IREAD pass rates have also fluctuated since the pandemic, with roughly 54% passing the test last year.

Student enrollment has steadily increased over the past six years, and a majority of the school’s students last year were multilingual learners, according to the district.

Sankofa School of Success

ILEARN scores for the K-6 Sankofa School of Success on the east side have surpassed prepandemic proficiency rates in English and math to around 8% for both subjects.

But those levels still fall below the roughly 10% proficiency rates of the emerging schools cohort in both subjects.

Sankofa has also reduced suspensions since becoming a jumpstart school in 2020-21, according to the district.

Because Sankofa is not a charter school overseen by a charter school authorizer, but rather a nonprofit without a charter run by its own board, the school’s new innovation contract ties academic performance to the district’s own academic framework.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org

Ex-Edison administrator terminated after dispute over racial slur now leads Indianapolis charter school

2024-09-05T17:03:50+00:00

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An Indianapolis school administrator who was terminated over allegations that he used a racial slur when speaking to a student has started a new role leading another school.

Nathan Tuttle, who was previously executive director and CEO at Edison School of the Arts, started as the K-8 principal of Matchbook Learning on June 1. Like Edison, Matchbook belongs to the Indianapolis Public Schools’ Innovation Network, which gives its schools more autonomy in hiring and operational decisions than district-managed schools.

Tuttle served as the Edison executive director from 2016 to March of last year, when he was terminated by the Edison board following a public meeting. Unlike Matchbook Learning and many other Innovation Network schools, Edison is not a charter school, but is governed by a nonprofit and its own school board.

During the meeting, parents and staff claimed Tuttle used a racial slur in front of Black students, a claim that Tuttle countered by saying that he had only repeated the slur while disciplining a student who first said it.

After his termination, Tuttle brought a lawsuit in federal court against Edison, IPS, and individual teachers and administrators, citing a “coordinated campaign of defamation, distortion, and malice” directed at him.

“During a protest organized and sanctioned by certain Edison administration, teachers, and staff members, students chanted homophobic slurs and other insults aimed at Tuttle,” the lawsuit says. “And on March 7, 2023, the Board conducted a special meeting and allowed several participants to publicly defame and insult Tuttle.”

Though the lawsuit is proceeding, IPS was dismissed from the suit on June 5 through an agreement between Tuttle and the district. Tuttle is seeking lost wages, compensatory damages for mental anguish, and attorney’s fees and costs. The case is scheduled for a settlement conference in October.

Tuttle declined to comment on why the district was dismissed from the suit. He said he was excited to be working with Matchbook, and that the school has supported him.

“We ask for feedback all the time and the feedback from PD sessions and touring the school and talking with community members has been positive, with people excited about the change in leadership,” Tuttle said during a phone interview with Chalkbeat.

Matchbook founder Sajan George said he had no reservations about hiring Tuttle following dozens of hours of one-on-one meetings with him. He said he also sought input from others knowledgeable about the situation at Edison, including James Hill, another former Edison administrator. Hill is now the principal of the charter network’s new high school, The Match, and has been with the network for more than a year, George said.

In a statement, Hill said Edison students showed academic growth under Tuttle’s leadership.

“Now that he has joined Matchbook Learning, he is already starting to make a difference with the students, and our parents have responded favorably to his leadership thus far,” Hill said.

George further said that Matchbook parents have had the opportunity to meet with Tuttle, both in small groups by invitation and in an open forum.

“Everyone’s happy with the selection,” George said.

George said IPS was aware of the hiring and did not raise any concerns after the district was dismissed from the lawsuit.

In a statement, the district said it does not “directly hire staff nor control the hiring processes for the Innovation Charter schools that are part of the IPS Innovation Network.”

“Matchbook Learning’s personnel policies, hiring decisions, and operational procedures are separate from those of IPS. As an Innovation School operator, Matchbook Learning maintains autonomy over its staffing and employment practices while working in partnership with IPS to serve students within the district’s portfolio of schools,” IPS said in the statement.

In April, Matchbook submitted a letter seeking a renewal of its charter to its authorizer, the Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. George said the school intends to continue its innovation agreement with IPS.

The education innovation office said in a statement that “personnel decisions are managed by the school’s leaders and board of directors,” and that the school made the office aware of Tuttle’s hiring before this school year.

The Edison School of the Arts board named Michelle Brittain-Watts CEO and Executive Director in December 2023.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

IPS opens streamlined application process for potential Innovation Network schools

2024-08-30T18:57:44+00:00

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Indianapolis Public Schools is now accepting letters of interest from potential partners as part of a streamlined application process for in-boundary schools to join the Innovation Network.

The updated process is the result of a charter school collaboration resolution passed by the school board in June that affirmed the district’s commitment to collaborating with schools of all types, including charters. The district hopes that by making it easier for in-boundary schools to become Innovation partners, the new process will increase educational opportunities and allow traditional IPS and Innovation schools to learn from each other.

The finalized process was presented to the school board by Brian Dickey, the IPS executive director of portfolio strategy, on Thursday during its regular action meeting.

“Hopefully this is an opportunity for district-managed and Innovation Network schools to come together and collaborate for greater school-level and educator-level problem solving,” Dickey said at the board’s summer retreat on Aug. 20.

Innovation Network schools have autonomy over their operations but use school buildings within IPS boundaries and can access some district services. The district can claim Innovation students for their enrollment and academic performance data. Not all Innovation schools are charter schools, although many are.

The window for submitting letters of interest is open through Sept. 30. IPS is asking potential partners for the 2025-26 school year to explain the best practices they have in place for students, and to show evidence for how their school model is successful.

At their retreat, school board commissioners agreed to look for mental health support for students and cultural responsiveness in the classroom when considering potential partners.

IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson noted that the district must take into account the school’s socioeconomic factors, as well as how long it has been open, since the district asks for evidence-based practices in the application.

“I would not suggest a level of rigidity that does not give us the opportunity to consider the context of who’s being served in schools,” Johnson said at the board retreat.

In November, schools with promising letters of interest will be asked to submit a formal application, due in December. From January to June, the school board and IPS administrators will interview applicants, and a proposed agreement will be presented to the board.

Before the updated process, schools had five pathways to join the Innovation Network. Two of those options — Jumpstart, for existing underperforming IPS schools, and Restart, for existing underperforming non-IPS schools — will no longer be available. The new application offers three remaining pathways: a new school can join the network, an existing charter can join, or there can be a conversion.

The new school designation is meant for schools that have not existed before that plan to open within the district as part of the Innovation Network.

Existing charters already operate in the district’s boundaries but wish to collaborate with IPS via an Innovation agreement.

The conversion option refers to a high-performing IPS school that seeks greater autonomy by becoming an Innovation school.

More information about applying, including the letters of interest template, can be found here.

Contact Chalkbeat Indiana at in.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Believe Circle City High School joins IPS Innovation Network

2024-08-30T16:35:32+00:00

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Believe Circle City High School joined the Indianapolis Public Schools Innovation Network this week after the school board voted 7-0 Thursday to approve an agreement with the charter school.

As part of the Innovation Network, Believe Circle City will largely have control over its daily operations but receive certain services from the district. (Not all Innovation Network schools are charters, but many are.) IPS will provide food service, access to athletics facilities as the season allows, and $500 per in-boundary Believe Circle City student. IPS will be able to count Believe Circle City students for overall district enrollment and academic performance.

Brian Dickey, IPS executive director of portfolio strategy, said at Tuesday’s agenda review session that this agreement is a chance to “do something with partnership that each could not do individually.”

Believe Circle City is a college and career preparatory school on the northside of Indianapolis that enrolls about 200 students. The school leaders submitted their letter of interest in joining the Innovation Network in 2019. The high school belongs to the Believe Schools network, which also has a campus in St. Louis, according to its website.

The school is tuition free and “works with historically under-estimated youth in the Indianapolis community,” so that students can become independent and successful adults, the website says.

Believe Circle City performed 5 percentage points higher on the SAT math test than the IPS portfolio average in 2023-24, with 17% of students meeting the math benchmark for proficiency compared to 12% respectively. But its students did only marginally better in evidence-based reading and writing on average, according to data presented by Dickey on Tuesday.

The agreement will be up for renewal after five years. In that time, IPS and Believe Circle City will discuss best practices to support students and collaborate when possible, Dickey said.

Contact Chalkbeat Indiana at in.tips@chalkbeat.org.

IPS approves charter school collaboration resolution amid uncertainty over community desires

2024-06-28T16:16:06+00:00

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The Indianapolis Public Schools board adopted a resolution Thursday reaffirming its commitment to working with schools of all kinds, including charters, to improve student performance and support racial equity.

The resolution passed 7-0 after a half hour of debate and public comment. The board debated the resolution at a meeting last month, and the extent to which there is — and should be — tension between different school models is a longstanding issue in the city.

Still, commissioners expressed mixed feelings about whether the community at large genuinely desires charter models, or if pro-charter groups have skewed the conversation.

“I can have a conversation with a parent and ask them direct questions about what they want,” IPS Commissioner Nicole Carey said. “And they’ll say one thing, and then they’ll come here, and they’ll say something completely opposite.”

Charter supporters and skeptics have demanded solutions for academic inequities across the district. For example, the ILEARN proficiency rate in 2023 for white students in traditional IPS schools was around 31 percentage points higher than for their Black peers, and 28 percentage points higher than for Hispanic students. Meanwhile, Black and Hispanic students in independent charters outperformed their peers in both traditional IPS schools and Innovation charters on the ILEARN last year.

Under Resolution 8020, the board acknowledged the need for “greater coherence, clarity, and collaboration” between traditional public, Innovation Network, and independent charter schools. Innovation schools officially belong to the IPS portfolio but largely have autonomy over their day-to-day operations. Twenty-four of the 30 Innovation schools during the 2023-24 school year were charters.

Three community members, all affiliated with the charter advocacy group Stand for Children, expressed support during Thursday’s public comment period for charter models and their desire for the resolution to contain stronger pro-charter language. They used previous calls to action for the district to replicate “data-proven models” to close the “opportunity gap.”

“I really want to make sure that this board understands the importance of serving kids that look like mine and partner with school models that work for students of color,” Stand for Children advocate and IPS parent Irma Perdomo said through an interpreter.

One traditional public school advocate spoke against the resolution. Christina Smith of the Indianapolis Education Justice Coalition pushed for IPS to focus on its Rebuilding Stronger plan — which is reconfiguring schools and revamping academic offerings — rather than seek out more charter collaboration.

“IPS needs to be focusing on schools that are already under the IPS umbrella,” Smith said. “The administration, educators, staff, students, and families, and honestly all of Indianapolis need a chance for the massive district overhaul that is Rebuilding Stronger to come to fruition.”

In the resolution, the board directed IPS administration to deliver action items starting with the upcoming school year, including:

A public update by this August on Innovation Network partnerships and the application process for schools to join the network.
A monthly report on efforts to ensure every student has the support they need to reach literacy.
A quarterly update on the “climate and culture” of schools across the district.

Some commissioners and members of the public shared concerns about the resolution’s tight timeframe, including the August deadline to develop an application process to join the Innovation Network. (The resolution doesn’t include an exact date for that deadline.)

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said the district will be responsive to feedback on the public updates and reports.

“When I think about what is perhaps produced in August, I think it does need to be informed by what we’ve heard from community and needs to continue to hear,” Johnson said. “I’m under no pretense that that will be a final product.”

Haley Miller is a summer reporting intern covering education in the Indianapolis area. Contact Haley at hmiller@chalkbeat.org.

The 2025 IPS Teachers of the Year share what inspired them to work in the classroom

2024-06-07T11:00:00+00:00

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Typically, eighth graders aren’t great at keeping secrets.

But when it came to surprising their teacher Ashley Hogan with her Teacher of the Year award, she said they made it happen and it was a complete shock.

Last month, Indianapolis Public Schools made announcements for its 2025 Teachers of the Year: Hogan of Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School and Linda Thomson of Shortridge High School.

The annual award goes to one educator at the elementary level and one at the secondary level. They are nominated by principals and selected by a committee of peers, per IPS.

Below, Hogan and Thomson answered questions from Chalkbeat about their teaching inspirations, using multiple languages in the classroom, and how to spend summer break.

These interviews have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

A family of educators and personal classroom experiences

Hogan teaches eighth grade English language arts at Emma Donnan, which is part of Adelante Schools and an IPS innovation school.

Ashley Hogan from Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School is given one of two 2025 IPS Teacher of the Year awards.

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

Honestly, third grade was the year that I knew education was the path I wanted. My father, mother, and grandmother were all educators. I grew up around kids, and felt like it was my calling.

I started in early education because those early years are most important and foundational. I became an eighth grade teacher two years ago because I wanted a challenge. I found that my students didn’t have that early foundation year, so I ended up incorporating those foundation skills from teaching younger students.

How do you use your own experience with an Individualized Education Program to empower your students?

I struggled with math growing up and had an IEP. The toolset I gained from that are the strategies that I use in my classroom now. I tell my scholars that everyone is different and all the strategies aren’t going to work for everyone.

I also tell them that I understand that at times things are going to be difficult, so growth is a win. If I made small progress in my math skills, my family would praise me so I give that same praise to my students.

How do you use being multilingual in the classroom?

I am fluent in Spanish and professionally fluent in French after learning as a student at the International School of Indiana and kept going in college.

For the last two years, I’ve had classes that are a mix of English and Spanish speakers, so I teach in Spanish and English and it helps students who are Spanish speakers to have more confidence. Little by little they have more confidence to answer questions in English too.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

I have two. The first unit of the year allows my scholars to write poetry and read it in the classroom. They gain confidence and the other scholars are in their seats encouraging them. I immediately saw their confidence in public speaking increase.

And second is a Shakespearean unit. You can see them make the effort to read aloud and try out the tone and be confident. They want to be Puck and say the lines and try it out.

What is your advice to students on how to spend the summer?

Enjoy the summer. The school year is when they have to be locked in and focused and engaged. But in the summer, they can go outside, put down the phones, get away from the TV and try something new.

My eighth graders last year who did that felt better and more confident in themselves in the new high school year so I want the same for this group that just ended the year.

From the dance studio to Shortridge Spanish class

Thomson teaches Spanish and is a World Language Department Lead at Shortridge.

Linda Thomson of Shortridge High School learns she is one of two 2025 IPS Teachers of the Year.

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

I have always known I wanted to be a teacher: I was that kid who had a chalkboard and would sit my dolls around my room and give them spelling tests.

I am so passionate about my heritage and sharing my love of the language with others, so teaching Spanish was an obvious choice for me. More than anything, I love helping others, and being a teacher is a great opportunity to do just that.

What was your experience with school and how does it influence you today?

I had really great teachers, especially in high school. My teachers allowed us to be creative and gave us a space where we would feel comfortable asking questions and expressing our opinions.

Teachers who pushed me to do more than the bare minimum in my classes because they knew I was capable of more. I strive to be that same positive influence on my students as well, pushing them to see what more they can achieve.

Similarly, how does growing up in a bilingual household impact your work?

On my mom’s side, I was the first person to graduate high school, then college. Everything I do I ask myself: “How can I make my family proud?” In the classroom, I talk about my experiences growing up, and can relate to my students who have also had to grow up being the family’s translator.

It is more than just teaching a second language for me. It is about inspiring my students to explore the world. I just had a former student spend a semester in Spain and another recently switched her major to Spanish education. When students share those experiences with me, it’s pretty special.

Before teaching at Shortridge, you owned a dance studio. What did that experience teach you about inspiring students?

It taught me how hard work can truly pay off. At the end of the season we would put on a big dance recital. Organizing that show for so many students was a lot of work.

The most rewarding time happened when it was all done — when the students could look back and realize that they overcame the fear that comes with performing on a stage. Showing the students everything they can do by working together and positively supporting each other is something that I love to see, even if my teaching environment has changed from a studio to a classroom.

What is your advice to students on how to spend the summer?

Students should spend their summers doing what makes them happy, but also be willing to try new things. This is your opportunity to learn a new skill or explore a new place!

Find a cool book to read, find new music or an interesting podcast to listen to, etc. You can start a new job, which is one of the best ways to meet new people or finish up that craft project you didn’t have time for during the school year.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. She also covers access to higher education and Warren Township Schools. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

IU Indianapolis expands automatic admissions pilot to IPS charter high schools

2024-05-23T10:00:00+00:00

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Indiana University Indianapolis is expanding its automatic admissions program to admit qualifying students in all charter high schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools Innovation Network.

The announcement on Thursday builds off of the groundbreaking program IU Indianapolis and IPS announced in September that grants automatic admission to seniors with a grade point average of at least 3.0. At that time, the pilot initiative extended to seniors at Crispus Attucks, Arsenal Tech, Shortridge, and George Washington high schools, which are run directly by the district. As of May 13, 158 seniors at those schools have been automatically admitted for the fall of 2024.

Now, the program is expanding to cover students in the district’s Innovation Network high schools, all of which are autonomous charter schools. The first round of seniors in those charters will be admitted through the pilot for the fall of 2025.

The Innovation Network schools now covered by the pilot are:

Christel House Watanabe High School.
Herron High School.
Herron-Riverside High School.
Hope Academy.
KIPP Indy Legacy High School.
Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy.
Purdue Polytechnic High School-North.
Purdue Polytechnic High School-Englewood.

The pilot grants automatic admission to students with a GPA of 3.0 or higher without requiring an application, an application fee, or submission of a high school transcript. Instead, qualifying students are notified of their eligibility and fill out an online form.

The pilot, launched in partnership with EmployIndy, also gives admitted students access to career and advising services on the IU Indianapolis campus, according to a press release of the announcement.

IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said in a statement that the program’s expansion is a “transformative moment” in the educational journey for students and families.

“We know that this initiative holds the potential to significantly enhance the numbers of IPS graduates attending colleges or universities,” Johnson said. “Together, we’re paving the way for a future where every student can aspire, achieve and seamlessly transition to higher education, contributing to the growing success of our graduates.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

IPS enrollment declines slightly in 2023-24 while charter school enrollment keeps growing

2024-01-05T19:37:44+00:00

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Enrollment at Indianapolis Public Schools has remained fairly stable since last year, despite the closure of six buildings that sent over 1,000 students searching for new schools this year.

Marion County’s largest district lost only 169 students from 2022-23 to 2023-24, bringing total enrollment to 21,858, according to data from the Indiana Department of Education. The figure excludes students enrolled in charter schools within the district’s Innovation Network of autonomous schools, which the state counts separately.

Although the district continues to lose students annually, the latest figures indicate that sharp drops in enrollment stemming from the pandemic have essentially flattened out; from 2019-20 to 2020-21, the district lost roughly 10% of its students. Enrollment declines this year and last school year have been less than 1%.

This year’s slight decline could indicate that enrollment won’t change dramatically next year, when the district embarks on the latter half of its Rebuilding Stronger reorganization and sends even more students to different schools as IPS breaks up its K-8 schools.

In a bid to boost its enrollment, IPS has paid federal pandemic relief to a private firm to recruit students. IPS has also stressed the choices parents have within the district as it implements Rebuilding Stronger.

Overall, district officials were happy with the new enrollment numbers, said Patrick Herrel, the district’s director of enrollment and options.

“We did put a very intentional and concerted effort into making sure we were reaching out to and communicating with families so we would lose as few students as possible during the big transition that happened last year,” he said.

Student enrollment in the district’s Innovation Network charter schools grew by about 200 to roughly 10,350 students total. That continues a trajectory of growth among these charter schools that has recently kept total enrollment in the IPS portfolio of schools relatively stable.

Enrollment at charter schools not affiliated with IPS but operating within IPS boundaries also increased from last year by a few hundred students to roughly 13,600.

Demographics at charter and traditional public schools differ

Both independent and Innovation charter schools as a whole have roughly 75% of their students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, compared with about 56% of students in the district’s non-charter population.

At those charters, roughly 51% of students are Black, compared with the district’s 37%.

But compared with those charter schools, non-charter IPS schools have a higher proportion of Hispanic students, special education students, and English language learners.

Student enrollment grows at several IPS schools

IPS schools that grew the most this year include those that the district set as default schools for students at closing schools. That includes James Russell Lowell School 51, which had the biggest jump, from 294 students to 528, or nearly 80%, and Anna Brochhausen School 88, which grew from 263 to 384 students.

But schools not in that category also saw big jumps, including Brookside School 54 and George Julian School 57 on the east side of the district — both of which grew by over 20%.

Herrel said those schools — along with William McKinley School 39, which grew by roughly 9% — did a decent amount of recruiting for families at schools that closed.

“I think pretty universally we saw not all families chose to go to their guaranteed default school,” he said. “So pretty commonly, they spread around nearby schools.”

Schools where enrollment dropped the most include George Washington High School, which declined to 624 students, a loss of roughly 17%, and the Center for Inquiry at School 27 in the Kennedy-King neighborhood. In fact, all four Center for Inquiry schools had enrollment declines.

Parents at these and other IPS magnet schools voiced concerns about the Rebuilding Stronger’s plan to break up the K-8 model that they argued served these schools well. Some decided to pull their children out of those schools ahead of the district’s sweeping grade reconfigurations that will take place next year.

But Herrel said the exact cause of the drops is unclear.

Applications for IPS schools higher than last year

Meanwhile, IPS continues to receive applications for its schools at a higher rate than last year, according to officials.

Just before the district’s winter break in December, 22,060 families applied — a 43% jump compared to the same time last year, according to Herrel.

“We were very intentional last year in how we communicated and worked with families on how they were going to be impacted on Rebuilding Stronger,” Herrel said. “We’re trying to apply that same approach this coming school year.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

KIPP Legacy High School student fatally shot near school identified

2023-11-06T21:01:40+00:00

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The KIPP Legacy High School student shot and killed near the school on Friday afternoon has been identified as 15-year-old Devin Gilbert III, according to the Marion County coroner’s office.

Gilbert was shot as he was walking home from school just before 1 p.m., the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the school said Friday. Police said the shooting was a targeted incident and no other people were injured.

IMPD homicide detectives announced on Friday night the arrest of a 15-year-old for his alleged role in the shooting, but did not release the name of the suspect. The Marion County prosecutor’s office will make the final charging decision, police said.

A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said charges will have to be filed in juvenile court due to the age of the suspect.

Since Gilbert’s death Friday, at least two more teenagers were shot and killed in the city over the weekend, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Legacy High School planned to have on-site support available for students and staff on Monday to help them process the tragedy, the school said in a statement on Friday.

Police urge anyone with information about the incident to call Detective Larry Craciunoiu at the IMPD Homicide Office at 317-327-3475 or send an email to Larry.Craciunoiu@indy.gov. People who wish to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Student shot and killed outside KIPP Legacy High School

2023-11-03T22:27:05+00:00

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A teenage student at KIPP Legacy High School was shot and killed Friday in a community center parking lot next to the school in what police say was a targeted shooting.

The student, who has not yet been identified, was walking home when he was shot just before 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the Edna Martin Christian Center’s Leadership and Legacy Center, both the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the school said Friday afternoon.

Police have detained a teenage male suspect who they said is not a Legacy student.

KIPP Legacy has a close relationship with the center, and uses space for extracurricular programming there. The community center also reserves parking spaces in its lot for KIPP staff. Both are fixtures of the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood.

“We are in ongoing communication with the student’s family, and will continue to offer support during this extremely difficult time,” the school said in a Friday afternoon statement. “On Monday, we will have on-site supports available for students and staff as our school community processes this tragedy.”

Police said there was a disturbance at the school earlier in the day, which is being investigated, but did not elaborate further. But they said there is not enough information to conclude whether the two incidents were connected. No one else was injured in the shooting.

The homicide marks at least the fourth fatal shooting of a school-aged youth in less than two weeks in Indianapolis. One 15-year-old boy was found fatally shot on Oct. 21, and a 16-year-old girl was killed eight days later. Another 15-year-old girl was found fatally shot on Wednesday.

“It’s unacceptable that as a community, we’ve had conversations about youth violence all week, and this is how our week ends,” said IMPD Commander Matt Thomas. “It’s unacceptable that we have families hurting.”

Mayor Joe Hogsett has responded to such shootings with concerns about the accessibility of guns.

“This afternoon’s shooting of an Indianapolis teen is another example of the horrific combination of access to firearms and a failure of conflict resolution,” Hogsett said in a Friday statement. “No young person should have to worry about gun violence, let alone near a school.”

KIPP Legacy High School is a charter school within the Indianapolis Public Schools’ Innovation Network, and celebrated its first graduating class last spring.

Police urge witnesses or others with information to call the IMPD homicide office at 317-327-3475 or Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477 to remain anonymous.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Thrival Indy Academy Innovation school to close after 2023-24 amid low enrollment

2023-10-07T00:43:55+00:00

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Thrival Indy Academy, designed to offer study abroad opportunities to students as an Indianapolis Public Schools Innovation Network high school, will close at the end of the 2023-24 school year after failing to meet enrollment targets.

The school’s board of directors voted on Friday to not renew its Innovation agreement with IPS once it expires at the end of this school year. The high school, located within Arlington Middle School, has 107 students this year who will have guaranteed spots at an IPS high school in 2024-25, according to the district.

Year after year, Thrival could not meet the enrollment targets set forth in its latest Innovation agreement, signed in 2019. This year, that target was set at 300 students.

“When we look at student numbers and enrollment, we have to ask ourselves the question of what student experience can we really give the students?” Julius Mansa, Thrival’s board chairperson, said during the meeting.

The Thrival board also voted to offer retention stipends of $10,000 for teachers and support staff and $12,000 for administrative staff who stay through the end of the school year.

“This is always the hardest decision to share as a superintendent, but I am committed to getting this transition right for Thrival students, families, and staff,” IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said in a statement. “My pledge to Thrival families is that IPS will have your back every step of the way by helping you find a great IPS high school for your child next school year.”

The high school is one of the few IPS Innovation Network schools that is not a charter school. It is run by a nonprofit organization and a board of directors.

Thrival opened in 2017 as a small pilot program within IPS that allowed students to study abroad in Thailand for free. It later grew to a one-year school that only enrolled juniors.

But the school paused operations for one-year in 2019-20 as officials figured how to help students fit the one-year opportunity into four years of high school. Thrival relaunched in 2020-21 as a four-year high school, after signing a new Innovation agreement with IPS that allowed it to start with ninth graders and grow by one grade each school year.

Students were unable to travel for two school years after the pandemic, Mansa said. Last school year, students took a domestic trip. A Puerto Rico trip is planned for some students this year, he said.

Loki Lavin, a sophomore at the school, expressed concern about the transition of Thrival students into much larger schools after Friday’s meeting.

“This school is small and we’re very close-knit like a family,” Lavin said. “And I think that’s part of what makes us different.”

Mansa said he was unsure if the pandemic caused the school’s low enrollment.

“I know it’s a tough enrollment environment in general,” he said. “There’s a lot of options. Students have a lot of choices.”

The district will offer enrollment sessions for each Thrival family, IPS said in a statement.

Enrollment at IPS schools for next school year begins Nov. 1, and families can apply to schools at enrollindy.org/apply. All IPS school buildings will be open for families to visit during a showcase of schools from 4 to 8 p.m. Nov. 1.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Herron Prep Academy starts new year at former Indianapolis Children’s Museum site

2023-09-13T20:53:10+00:00

Herron Prep Academy celebrated the start of its new school year in a new building on Wednesday, the latest sign of growth for the Herron Classical Schools charter network, which has three Indianapolis schools.

The new site at 3100 N. Meridian St., which the school purchased from the Children’s Museum in 2022 for an undisclosed price, houses K-5 students who occupied the building for the first time in August. Herron Prep plans to eventually grow to serve K-8 students at the site, and is embarking on a second phase of construction at the location to create classrooms for fifth to eighth grades and a gymnasium.

All three schools are part of the Indianapolis Public Schools network of autonomous schools, known as the Innovation Network. The expansion will allow students in lower grades to enroll in Herron’s classical education offerings.

The school is the newest addition to the Herron Classical Schools charter network, which began in 2006 with Herron High School. The network created Herron-Riverside High School in 2017 at the old Heslar Naval Armory site, and Herron Prep opened with grades K-2 in 2021.

Herron Prep students look on as officials cut the ribbon for the new building at the start of the 2023-24 school year.

Enrollment at Herron Prep school nearly doubled from last school year to this year, according to school officials, with 315 students currently in the new building.

As the charter network grew, officials saw gaps that needed to be addressed.

“Ninth grade students were coming consistently to us struggling to do fractions and reading well below grade level,” Herron Classical Schools President Janet McNeal said at the ribbon-cutting. “We knew our solution was creating and building our own kindergarten through eighth grade school.”

Students previously occupied the lower level of the Herron-Riverside High School and space at Herron High School before moving into their own building this year.

The new campus, which used to be a Salvation Army facility, is just under 3 miles away from the network’s two charter high schools.

Herron Prep plans to grow to K-6 next year, with the second phase of construction expected to be completed around next July.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Corrections and clarifications: This story has been updated to reflect an accurate description of the formation of Herron-Riverside High School.

IPS ILEARN scores improve some, but remain below independent charters

2023-07-14T12:00:00+00:00

Indiana’s latest ILEARN scores show that Black and Hispanic students in independent charters in Indianapolis continue to outperform their peers in Indianapolis Public Schools and the district’s own charter schools.

IPS, however, is inching along in its pandemic academic recovery with a greater share of students proficient in both subjects than in 2019, while independent charters and charters in the IPS Innovation Network as a whole have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels.

The results for the three public school systems serving students within IPS attendance boundaries show slow growth in some areas and stagnation in others, in some cases mirroring a recent national analysis showing students experienced little to no academic progress in the 2022-23 academic year. (Chalkbeat’s analysis of independent charters included some schools that are physically outside of IPS boundaries but enroll a majority of IPS students).

IPS rates remained low: 14.8% of students scored proficient in both math and English, up slightly from 14.1% the year before, and more than 4 percentage points above 2021 scores. The most recent scores are one point higher than rates from 2019, the first time students took the exam.

The gains since 2021 have largely been driven by the district’s white students, whose proficiency rates have jumped by roughly 10 percentage points since the pandemic low in 2021 and are even higher than when students first took the ILEARN in 2019. Black and Hispanic students in IPS, however, have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

Charter schools within the IPS Innovation Network — a consortium of autonomous schools considered a part of IPS — collectively also increased combined English and math proficiency rates slightly from 6.7% to 6.9%.

On average, independent charters that are not affiliated with IPS slightly increased rates from 17% to 18% proficiency in both math and English. Black and Hispanic students in these schools continue to perform better than their peers in IPS. As a group, however, these schools have yet to reach pre-pandemic proficiency levels.

The results are similar to statewide rates that have also largely stalled — proficiency rates in both subjects increased from 30.2% to 30.6%.

IPS, however, is the only school district in Marion County that has exceeded 2019 rates for the percentage of students proficient in both subjects.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said she’s not satisfied with the outcomes, but is pleased to see continued progress.

“The fact that we stayed stable in English language arts, saw some positive movement in math, I think is a positive for us as a district given the context of the past year,” she said.

IPS mirrors statewide math gains and English losses

In IPS, proficiency rates in English dipped minutely from 22.3% to 22.2% while rates in math slightly increased from 19.5% to 21.1%.

IPS maintains a significant gap between white students on one hand and Hispanic and Black students on the other for percentages of students scoring proficient in English, math, and both subjects.

Johnson said the district has to double down on successful initiatives to drive student achievement, including tutoring programs.

This year, the district is expanding virtual tutoring during school hours to all schools that wish to participate. The district began an overhaul in curriculum in 2020.

“We have to be really urgent about the work we’re doing,” Johnson said.

Different circumstances may affect scores for school systems as a whole. For example, eight Innovation Network charter schools are chronically underperforming schools. To improve achievement, the district assigned them to a charter operator, but several still struggle.

Half of the eight so-called restart schools last spring increased the percentage of students proficient in both subjects.

Combined proficiency at Adelante Schools at Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School dipped slightly from 12.4% to 12.2%, but the school still maintains the highest rate among restart schools. Adelante’s individual rates for English and math also declined.

Eddie Rangel, Adelante’s executive director, said the school enrolled 194 new students in the 2022-23 year. He said new students had lower proficiency rates than longer-enrolled students.

“I don’t think any of us really know what’s going on, and it is frustrating to think we can’t pinpoint one thing,” Rangel said of national reports of stagnant learning. He said Adelante is focusing on grade-level scores and improvement.

Rangel said he hopes new state standards and revised school attendance boundaries will help stability and academics.

Black, Hispanic students in independent charters perform better

Independent charters continue to show higher rates for students proficient in both English and math.

This group of schools also maintains the highest proficiency rates for Black and Hispanic students, rates that have risen the most since 2021 but have still not reached 2019 levels.

“I do think that we have enough evidence that the independent charter schools in Indianapolis for Black students in particular are making tremendously larger academic gains than what we’re seeing for other schools,” said Brandon Brown, CEO of the Mind Trust nonprofit that helps incubate charter schools in Indianapolis. “The question is ‘What are the conditions that are driving those gains?’”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Former Edison CEO files complaints against school alleging defamation, wrongful termination

2023-05-31T14:34:21+00:00

The former head of an Indianapolis school alleges the school board let him be defamed in a termination proceeding that violated state law and essentially canceled him, according to a tort claim and a federal discrimination complaint filed in March and April, respectively.

Nathan Tuttle, the former CEO and executive director of the Edison School of the Arts, is seeking at least $300,000 in damages from the school in a tort claim, which individuals must file in Indiana and have denied in whole or in part before suing a government entity. He also filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), often the first step before filing a federal discrimination lawsuit.

Edison’s board terminated Tuttle in March after allegations from parents and staff that he used a racial slur when speaking to Black students; Tuttle countered in the claim and EEOC complaint that he repeated the slur while disciplining a student who had used it, but did not direct the slur at a student. He also alleges staff at the school let students chant homophobic insults about him during an on-campus protest.

The allegations against Edison mark an escalation in hostilities between the school’s former CEO and the Edison community at large. A public meeting in March to address the incident boiled over when parents, students, and staff publicly criticized what they called a toxic working and learning environment under Tuttle’s administration. The school board fired Tuttle a week later.

Tuttle’s allegations also come as Edison wraps up a challenging school year and tries, under new leadership, to change the school’s climate. After the public fallout following Tuttle’s dismissal, the board halted its plans to expand its programming into James Whitcomb Riley School 43.

Tuttle alleges he was also deprived of his due process rights under the 14th Amendment, which would allow him an opportunity to clear his name at a pre-termination hearing.

“He has, in effect, been cancelled,” the documents state. “The mob mentality that was allowed to pervade the Edison Board meeting on March 7th, carried over to their decision to terminate Tuttle.”

In a statement from the school’s executive committee of the board of directors, the school denied all allegations made in the complaints — noting that as an Innovation school in Indianapolis Public Schools, Edison is not required to comply with termination proceedings outlined in state law for traditional public schools.

The school also argued that its investigation into the incident gave Tuttle the opportunity to weigh in and respond to the public allegations at length.

“The Board appreciates the service that Mr. Tuttle made to the School, but will be clear that Mr. Tuttle was terminated in compliance with Indiana state statute and pursuant to the requirements to release an at-will employee,” the committee said.

A spokesperson for IPS did not provide comment.

Tuttle: Traditional public school labor protections should apply

In both complaints, Tuttle is seeking two years worth of his $150,000 annual salary at Edison, plus bonuses and benefits. They also seek unspecified compensation for damage to his reputation.

A key dispute between Tuttle and Edison is the interpretation of state law governing Innovation Network schools, which have more autonomy in staffing and operations than traditional public schools. Innovation schools do not have to follow a collective bargaining agreement with a union, for example.

Tuttle’s attorney, Chip Clark, said the school breached his three-year contract that began in 2022. Both the tort claim and EEOC complaint cite state law that governs “regular teacher contracts” for traditional public schools and notes that Tuttle was also a choir teacher at the school. The board’s policy also requires the CEO to be employed in the form of a regular teacher’s contract, argued Clark.

The complaints also cite due process rights for school superintendents outlined in state law, which states that a superintendent can only be terminated for cause and can request a hearing before the school’s governing body when the board decides not to renew a superintendent contract.

But Edison argued that those statutes do not apply to Tuttle, and that he was an at-will employee of the nonprofit that operates Edison.

State law gives operational autonomy to Innovation schools, and says other statutes applicable to school corporations do not apply to them. While most IPS Innovation schools are run by charter operators, Edison is one of the few that is run by a nonprofit with its own board instead.

The school argued that Tuttle’s assertions are “further evidence that Mr. Tuttle did not understand his role as an Innovation School Leader.”

“Mr. Tuttle was terminated by the Board for his failure to comply with employee policies and procedures, lack of leadership and management of the school, significant concerns raised by numerous employees as part of the Board’s employment investigation, among other reasons,” the committee said in its statement.

If the school deemed Tuttle’s work unsatisfactory, the board’s policy requires it to give Tuttle opportunity to correct the conditions, which the board did not do, the complaints argue. But the school through its attorney argued that this policy only applies to the renewal or non-renewal of the CEO’s contract, and that the policy also states the board may terminate the CEO’s contract during its term in accordance with the law.

Both complaints also allege the school discriminated against him based on race and sexual orientation, noting that Tuttle is a gay white male who is the father of a Black child.

The complaints also claim that in a protest during lunch on March 3 that appeared on social media, Edison students called Tuttle homophobic slurs while he was on leave.

“The teachers and administrators in charge of Edison during Tuttle’s administrative leave allowed this to happen,” Tuttle’s complaints state.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis school for students with substance-use struggles guides another class to graduation

2023-05-19T09:00:00+00:00

Looking back, Ashley Mash is somewhat thankful that a few years ago, her father called the police after her sisters found the two blunts she had put in a drawer in the basement.

Months before, she had gotten high for the first time as a freshman in the Carmel High School bathroom, an experience that turned into a coping mechanism to deal with feelings of insecurity and anxiety. When her parents sent her to Hope Academy — a charter high school in Indianapolis for students struggling with substance use — she did not want to go.

Now, Ashley is the valedictorian in a class of seven graduates who will celebrate their diplomas in a ceremony on Saturday. She is heading to Ball State University to study wildlife conservation with nine months of sobriety under her belt.

“Obviously I still have cravings and stuff,” she said. “But I realized how many problems I don’t have when I don’t smoke.”

Valedictorians at Hope Academy don’t earn the title based on grade point average alone, but also on their service to the school and their commitment to staying sober. Ashley has been active in the school, even giving a speech at the school’s regular fundraising event.

“I don’t know how to ever repay you,” she said about the school in the speech she gave at the event in November. “But I can start today by continuing to be sober and living the life that you saved.”

The graduation for Hope Academy is among the first in the wave of high school graduations that begin this month for the Class of 2023.

Hope Academy is celebrating its 17th graduating class this year since opening in 2006 as the state’s only recovery high school. It is one of 42 across the country, according to the Association of Recovery Schools.

The challenges for Hope Academy and other recovery schools have changed since then. With a shortage of proper treatment programs, schools like Hope are now increasingly on the front lines of students’ recovery efforts, said Rachelle Gardener, the school’s co-founder and executive director.

“They find us first and we’re doing a lot of referrals to treatment, if we can find treatment,” she said. “We’ve had to kind of adjust the way we look at that student when they come to us, not having a lot of knowledge of addiction, not having a lot of knowledge of recovery.”

In an attempt to reach more students, Hope moved to a more central location on the southside of Indianapolis in 2020 and joined the Indianapolis Public Schools as an Innovation Network school that same year.

The legalization and prevalence of marijuana in recent years has presented a new challenge, Gardner said. Now, all of the school’s students have a marijuana substance use issue, whereas nearly two decades ago students primarily struggled with other substances such as alcohol.

At Hope, students take a traditional academic curriculum to align to the state’s Core 40 standards required to graduate. But they also have recovery coaches who help guide them through their addiction, and a recovery and wellness class that breaks up the standard academic day.

After two years at the school, Mash realized she didn’t like the feeling of smoking weed and the anxiety it would bring. When senior year hit, she knew she had to graduate because she didn’t want to be in school forever.

She was also motivated to change when she realized how much she was hurting the people around her, she said.

“My parents were really worried and for a while, I knew that they were worried and I didn’t care,” she said. “Senior year hit and I was like, ‘I actually have to get my stuff done and be sober and make something of myself.’”

And when her father passed away in January, she still stayed sober.

Ashley advises other students struggling with addiction: “Don’t be selfish.”

“You have to think of your future,” she added. “No matter how badly I didn’t want to think about it, I knew that if I was 20 and still in school I wouldn’t be happy. I think that everyone that’s still struggling with it needs to just try their best to do better, because it’s not perfect, but as long as you’re trying to help yourself then that’s all you can do.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Push to change Indiana property taxes to benefit charter schools triggers alarm in IPS

2023-04-06T11:00:00+00:00

Indiana’s 2023 legislative session is under way, and state legislators have introduced more than 100 new education bills and bills impacting schools and students. For the latest Indiana education news, sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free newsletter here.

Republican lawmakers are advancing major changes to the state’s school funding system to benefit charter schools and districts with relatively low property tax values.

The proposed Republican House budget, along with a newly amended GOP Senate bill, would rework Indiana’s property tax system to pump more funding into charters and level what lawmakers say is an unfair playing field for charters and traditional public schools. Lawmakers also might create a dedicated funding stream for charters’ capital expenses that would replace the so-called “$1 law.”

But the proposals have been sharply criticized by Democrats and traditional public school leaders, who argued that the changes would come at the expense of thousands of students in traditional public schools.

The bills channel issues at the heart of a recent dispute over tax revenue in Indianapolis Public Schools. The district withdrew its plan to ask voters for new property taxes on the May ballot, amid criticism from charter school supporters that the draft ballot measure did not provide charters enough money. If the proposals become law, they could change the long-term balance of fiscal power within the state’s public education system.

Together, House Bill 1001 and Senate Bill 391 would do the following to boost funding for charters and school districts with low property values:

Provide $1,400 per charter school student from the state in fiscal year 2024 and $1,500 in fiscal year 2025, replacing a state program that provides $1,250 per student to compensate for a lack of property tax revenue.
Provide $20 million in next year’s budget for charter schools’ capital needs.
Require school districts in Marion, Lake, St. Joseph, and Vanderburgh counties to share with charter schools any revenues from ballot measures passed to support operating or school safety expenses after June 30, 2023. Virtual charters and adult high school charter schools would not receive such funding. A fiscal analysis says the revenue would be shared “proportionally.”
Provide state funding for school districts that are unable to raise at least $1,400 per pupil from its operating fund in 2024 and $1,500 in 2025. The funding would supplement existing property taxes to get to those baselines each year.

In addition, the budget bill would require traditional school districts to reduce their maximum tax rate for operation expenses to 40 cents per $100 of net assessed value by 2031.

Unlike Indiana’s traditional public schools, charters generally do not receive property tax revenues. The one exception is for those considered part of Indianapolis Public Schools, which has opted to share some property tax revenue with its affiliated charters.

Nevertheless, Indianapolis charter school leaders have repeatedly said that the gap between funding for traditional school students and charter students is over $7,000 per student.

“What the House is trying to do is trying to look at charters in parity with the other public schools,” Rep. Bob Behning, the Republican leader of the House education committee, told Chalkbeat. “How do we get them closer to parity with the traditional public schools in terms of funding?”

The proposals would mean significant changes for IPS, where there are over 25 charter schools in the district’s Innovation network and just over 30 other independent charters within district boundaries.

Indianapolis Public Schools would lose $30 million over the next three years under the proposals, IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson told lawmakers last week at a hearing on Senate Bill 391. That loss would increase to $220 million by 2031, equivalent to about 500 teaching positions, she said.

Johnson testified that it would harm taxpayers “whose schools will see less dollars as a result of the passed House budget, and who ultimately will be asked to take on an even greater tax obligation on behalf of even more schools because of the system that this state has created.”

Most Marion County districts, including IPS, have an operating tax rate of more than 40 cents that officials would need to cut by 2031.

Charter proponents support sharing

Janet McNeal, president of the Herron Classical Schools charter network, said Senate Bill 391 would alleviate costs that its schools currently face.

When Herron High School moved into the Herron School of Art building, the network had to cut expenses “in every way we could” to prepare the building’s interior, McNeal told the House education committee last week. Nearly two decades later, the school is facing millions of dollars worth of badly needed upgrades to its roof and HVAC system.

“We can’t afford it — we just can’t,” she said. “Thus, we are forced to continue patching the roof, which leaks into our classrooms during heavy rains, and continue to make repairs on our HVAC system — and the repairs are, individually, costly.”

But Democrats in the statehouse say charter backers want more money without the responsibility that should come with it.

“We have groups that don’t want the authority of the school board,” Rep. Ed DeLaney told Chalkbeat. “They don’t want to be tied to the district where the property is located, but they want the money.”

Operating tax rate capped

The Republican budget also caps the rate at which school districts may tax property for operating expenses.

That means four Marion County school districts would collect less than they are currently projected for 2024, according to projections from the Indiana Legislative Services Agency.

Indianapolis Public Schools, for example, would receive $2.5 million less in property tax revenues in 2024, and by 2026, it would receive $16.5 million less.

At the same time, the proposed budget gradually reduces the amount of property tax revenue that is restricted under the state’s property tax cap. This would allow districts to collect more in property taxes each year.

Lawmakers ‘give up’ on $1 law

The Senate bill would also eliminate the state’s $1 law by July 2025.

The law requires school districts to offer “vacant or unused” school buildings to charter schools or state educational institutions for the sale or annual lease price of $1. Enacted in 2005, it was meant to provide charter schools easier access to buildings without the support of property tax revenue.

But the law’s vague wording has led to legal battles between charter schools that want those buildings and traditional school districts that argue they are still in use.

The state attorney general’s office, which is responsible for investigating claims that school districts are not following the $1 law, has ruled against traditional school districts in just one of the nine individual complaints publicly documented so far.

Behning said he does not think the law has worked as anticipated.

“I’m saying I give up,” he said at the House education committee meeting last week. “You are seeing a white flag.”

Instead, the budget bill includes a $20 million fund that would support capital needs for charter schools.

The proposed House budget is making its way through the Senate. Senate Bill 391 is now in the House Ways and Means Committee.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Using charters to fix ailing IPS schools yields instability and inconsistent academic results

2023-04-03T14:51:14+00:00

Early in the 2022-23 school year, Morrise Harbour walked the hallways of a school that he had completely rebranded.

The “Liberty Grove” sign outside the Elder Diggs School 42 building and the new interior paint job marked the latest effort to turn around the K-6 school with roughly 230 students.

But Harbour isn’t the first charter leader who has tried to change School 42’s trajectory. The other one’s tenure didn’t go so well.

In 2017, Ignite Achievement Academy took over School 42 as part of the Indianapolis Public Schools so-called “restart” initiative to improve its academic performance. But five years later, just 4% of students were proficient in English and 4% were proficient in math on Indiana’s ILEARN tests.

Indianapolis Public Schools ended its agreement with Ignite at the end of 2021-22, following a decline in student performance and enrollment. Harbour’s group took over the school last August.

“It’s surprising, to a certain extent, that there are so many students that are just not meeting the expectation,” Harbour said. “And then I also think about, ‘Well, where as the adults did we let the families and students down?’”

Liberty Grove Schools became the new charter operator to take over Elder Diggs School 42 in August 2022 after another charter operator, Ignite Achievement Academy, failed to turn the school around.

Since 2015, IPS has brought on 10 charter operators to turn around nine of its chronically low-performing schools, categorizing them as restart schools within its Innovation Network of schools that are part of the district but have greater autonomy than traditional schools. But their test scores, even when COVID’s disruptions are accounted for, have for the most part improved only slightly or not at all. Two restart operators have been replaced. One restart school has closed. And no school has actually exited restart status.

As local charter schools increase in number and size, the district’s restart model is one way to examine whether the autonomy provided charter schools truly does turn around poorly performing schools. And the 2023 state assessments — which are ramping up in March and April — will provide another stress test for these restart schools.

Before the pandemic hit, passage rates on the state’s third grade IREAD test for the four restart schools that had operated for more than one year increased in some years and decreased in others. The share of students reaching proficiency in both English and math on state exams increased at most restart schools from 2021 to 2022, although the same is true in general for schools statewide as test scores rebounded from pandemic-driven declines.

The state’s switch to a new ILEARN test in 2019, along with the pandemic, affected schools too much to allow for straightforward answers about whether restart schools are working, said Joshua Glazer, associate professor of education policy at George Washington University. Yet he said some things about the effort, like the “vast majority” of students who aren’t proficient on state tests, are clear.

“I don’t think it would be responsible to say, ‘Oh look, these guys have failed,’” said Glazer, who has studied Tennessee’s initiative to pair low-performing schools with charter operators. “But I think what is right to do and what is fair is to ask them [is]: What are you doing to respond to these numbers?”

IPS has no uniform set of goals to decide whether to renew Innovation Network agreements for its restart schools. Instead, the district relies on factors like enrollment and staff turnover when making recommendations about their status to the school board. Innovation agreements for these schools generally include a section on accountability metrics — yet those also vary from school to school.

Reaching a sweeping conclusion about the success of restart schools is complicated, IPS officials say. They argue that each turnaround effort brings its own challenges that might not neatly fit one narrative or set of objectives.

And the Mind Trust, a nonprofit which has helped incubate restart charter operators, argued that restart schools are collectively still outperforming the district’s internal turnaround effort for its lowest-performing schools known as Emerging Schools.

At Liberty Grove, Harbour is trying to change the experience dramatically for students.

“What we want is for the students to know what good teaching and learning feels like, looks like,” he said. “And when they’re going on to high school — or middle school in this case — they’re informed about those things.”

Measuring success varies between schools

IPS has been using the Innovation model as a turnaround strategy since 2015, when it reached a restart agreement with Phalen Leadership Academy to run Francis Scott Key School 103.

‘Restart’ charter schools in IPS

Below is a list of the district’s restart charter schools and the year each operator took over.

Phalen Leadership at Francis Scott Key School 103 (2015-16)
Global Prep Academy at Riverside School 44 (2016-17)
Kindezi Academy at Joyce Kilmer 69 (2016-17 to 2021-22): Not renewed.
Ignite Achievement Academy at Elder Diggs School 42 (2017-18 to 2021-22): Not renewed.
Matchbook Learning at Wendell Phillips School 63 (2018-19)
Urban ACT Academy at Washington Irving School 14 (2018-19 to 2022-23): Not renewed. A non-charter operator will take over School 14 in 2023-24. It’s unclear if the school will be classified as a restart school.
Adelante Schools at Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School (2020-21): Replaced Charter Schools USA (CSUSA) as operator. From 2015-16 to 2019-20, CSUSA ran Emma Donnan Elementary, which was created to complement the Emma Donnan Middle School that had been taken over by the state and was also run by CSUSA. Emma Donnan was not technically classified as a restart school but constituted a unique turnaround effort. The Innovation agreement for the elementary school was not renewed due to poor staff retention, declining enrollment, and a lack of instructional rigor.
Phalen Leadership Academy at Louis B. Russell School 48 (2020-21)
Path School at Stephen Foster School 67 (2020-21)
Liberty Grove at Elder Diggs School 42 (2022-23): Replaced Ignite as the operator.

Each decision to start or renew an agreement with a restart charter school looks different.

When the school board approved the Innovation agreement with Phalen Leadership Academy to run Louis B. Russell School 48, IPS did not yet have performance goals for the school finalized. Its agreement with Global Prep, however, referenced performance goals set forth in the school’s charter.

When staff recommended the renewal of Kindezi Academy, which became a restart school in 2016-17, they highlighted below-average attendance and staff retention, but also a “strong building culture.” After Kindezi backed out of the district’s one-year renewal option, the district closed the school.

When the district chose not to renew its agreement with Urban Act Academy in 2022, which ran Washington Irving School 14, the percentage of students proficient in both math and English on the ILEARN had risen to above pre-pandemic levels. Even so, just 1.6% of students were proficient in 2022.

Each school has unique factors that officials must consider, said Brian Dickey, the district’s director of Innovation schools.

“All these pieces come together to inform a recommendation that is not just one resolute data point,” he said.

To some, the disparate fates of these schools demonstrate that the restart charter process hasn’t worked as well as it could.

The renewal process has been inconsistently applied from school to school, said Brandon Brown, the CEO of the Mind Trust.

“There needs to be a comprehensive process that is well articulated and consistently used,” he said. “Because if not, there is less trust in the consistency of the renewal decisions if they’re not using a common process each time.”

A bill in the legislature may make the renewal process more uniform. House Bill 1591 would require Innovation agreements to include the process by which the board would follow when determining whether to renew an agreement.

For some restart schools, though, success amounts to more than just numbers.

At Phalen 103, the district’s oldest restart school, Principal Matt Rimer oversaw a culture shift, a change that district staff highlighted when they recommended renewing the agreement with Phalen in 2019.

Yet the percentage of students reaching proficiency in both English and math stood at just 2.1% in 2019, four years after Phalen became a restart school. And Phalen’s IREAD test scores over the years have been up and down.

Still, among the restart schools, Phalen 103 had among the highest growth rates in IREAD pass rates and combined reading and math ILEARN scores from 2021 to 2022.

This year, the school has a new motto: “Never be satisfied.”

“Obviously our goal is to be the same academically as our counterparts in every part of the state,” Rimer said.

Parents attend an open house at Phalen Leadership Academy at Francis Scott Key School 103 before school starts in August 2022.

Navigating the changes new school operators can bring

When Mariama Shaheed talks to Global Prep Academy students, she switches easily between English and Spanish.

The dual-language school joined the Innovation Network in 2016-17, and its test scores have improved recently.

IREAD pass rates are the highest they’ve been in four years at 63%. And the percentage of students scoring proficient in both English and math has inched above pre-pandemic levels, rising from roughly 5.6% to 7.3%.

But that progress hasn’t been easy.

Global Prep took over Riverside School 44, a pillar in the primarily Black community of Riverside that generations of residents had attended.

“When you talk about Spanish immersion, there’s all these fears associated with: What does that mean for the history and culture of Riverside 44?” Shaheed said. “And so a lot of listening was a part of that process.”

Amid the mistrust, Shaheed had to turn around a school that frequently had been rated F on the state’s A-F accountability system.

“It was the hardest work I’ve ever done as an educator,” she said. “You’re changing culture, you’re changing mindsets. The only thing that was stable was the student body — We were all new. They were not.”

Elementary school students walk in the halls of Global Prep Academy in December 2022. Global Prep was tasked by Indianapolis Public Schools with turning around Riverside School 44.

Shaheed attributes the school’s success to a mission-driven approach and a focus on recruiting the right people.

“It was the first time I felt like I had the real freedom to recruit for mission,” she said.

Since Global Prep’s launch, the demographics at School 44 have shifted from a majority of Black students to about 62% Latino and 35% Black, she said. Shaheed hopes to still attract more Black families to the dual-language school through community outreach, letting families in the area know that this school is still open to them despite a change in programming.

Seven miles away, on the district’s south side, Adelante Schools took over Emma Donnan as a K-8 restart school in 2020-21, during the middle of the pandemic.

But Eddie Rangel, Adelante’s executive director, also had to rebuild community trust in the school following problems with the previous operator. Eighth graders, for instance, did not have any foundation in basic math operations, such as multiplication or division, he said.

Two and a half years later, Rangel feels Adelante has established the trust it was seeking.

Ja’Quan Keys, center, reviews science work with eighth grade English language learner students at the Emma Donnan K-8 school on Feb. 15, 2023.

Academic results on IREAD and ILEARN have also improved. Rangel attributes the growth to teacher and professional development, not just a good curriculum.

“It started with the foundations of selecting high-quality instructional materials, but then it also went to developing teachers and then progress monitoring,” he said.

Getting parents and teachers to believe

The data on restart charter schools, though somewhat limited, can provide different conclusions for charter allies and critics.

Restart schools are still outperforming Emerging Schools on state tests, the Mind Trust said: Roughly 3% of students in all Emerging Schools reached proficiency in both English and math last year, compared to about 5% of students in restart schools, according to the group’s analysis.

Dickey of IPS said he hopes that there will be more clarity going forward as the pandemic’s effects recede.

”We are now hopefully in a state where we are now moving out of that and need to be able to ascertain where our schools are trending in that regard,” he said.

At Liberty Grove, Harbour wants longer class times and uses what he calls a “highly vetted curriculum” that he has adopted in the past. He’s also focused on hiring well and monitoring progress throughout the year.

Like other restart schools, Liberty Grove is starting from a place of struggle. But some parents and staff are sticking with Harbour because they’re impressed with his experience.

Makeba Averitte, an art teacher, worked at Ignite for five years but chose to stay on through the transition to Liberty Grove.

“Definitely the relationships with the kids and family is very important,” said Averitte, whose fifth grade daughter attends the school. “They see someone who is there for them.”

Harbour has a clear plan to create a successful school at Liberty Grove. Whether the restart charter model is the surefire panacea for underperforming schools, though, is not so clear to him.

“Is the solution to bring in a whole bunch of new charters to change?” Harbour said. “I think that’s still to be determined.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Tension over ballot measure to fund Rebuilding Stronger could get Indiana lawmakers involved

2022-12-22T11:00:00+00:00

If Indianapolis Public Schools declines to change its position about how much potential referendum money to share with charter schools, state legislators might just push the district to reconsider that view.

IPS heads into the new year amid public disagreement between district officials and some charters over how much funding from the referendum — worth up to $413.6 million over eight years for operating costs — should be split up between different schools, if voters approve it.

That referendum is crucial to the district’s Rebuilding Stronger revitalization plan. It would help fund everything from competitive teacher compensation to expanded academic programs, and is in part designed to make IPS more attractive to families as the district loses students to charters.

But state politics complicate that position. In the legislative session that begins in January, the district hopes to seek relief from a state law that forces the district to offer closed school buildings to charter schools for $1 sales or annual leases, district officials have previously said.

Any flexibility IPS obtains from lawmakers from the so-called $1 law could entail a tradeoff: an agreement by IPS to share more referendum funding with charters than it wants to.

Rep. Robert Behning, an Indianapolis Republican who chaired last session’s education committee and will likely do so again, has connected the two issues in the past, at least in general terms.

He previously told Chalkbeat Indiana that there may be some sort of solution over the $1 law this session. Behning also noted that parity in funding has been an important issue for the charter community. (Through a spokesperson, Behning said Tuesday that there are no updates regarding potential legislation over the $1 law or sharing referendum funding.)

A bill that failed to pass the last legislative session would have exempted IPS from the $1 law, while also requiring all school districts to share referendum funds with charter schools.

The school board delayed a vote in December about whether to move forward with placing the referendum on the ballot in May. That postponement followed vocal criticism from the charter school community, which for weeks has argued for a bigger slice of the funding from the operating referendum.

Among other things, charter advocates have noted that students of color make up a majority of their enrollment, and that not giving charter schools more of the money would undermine racial equity in local schools.

Charter-friendly groups Stand for Children Indiana and RISE Indy praised that delay.

“We remain hopeful that changes can be made that will allow our organization to eventually get behind this major investment in IPS. The dialogue over the next few weeks will be crucial,” Stand for Children Indiana Executive Director Justin Ohlemiller said in a statement last week.

Tension between fair funding, school transparency

While IPS has said it will share referendum funding with charter schools that are part of the district’s innovation network, it won’t share funding with non-innovation schools, due to concerns of accountability.

Sharing that money with all charter schools within the IPS borders would also not be financially sustainable for the district, Chief Financial Officer Weston Young previously told Chalkbeat.

“The specifics of the operating referendum are still under consideration as we continue conversations with our partners,” the district said in a Dec. 13 statement. “We remain committed to continued transparency and to delivering on our Rebuilding Stronger plan and earning our community’s support.”

Another potential factor in the debate: In January, the school board will welcome three new members, all of whom have all received endorsements from charter-friendly organizations. All three also opposed the first draft of Rebuilding Stronger.

The operating referendum is one of two that the district hopes to put on the May ballot to fund Rebuilding Stronger. In early December, the board passed a resolution backing a $410 million referendum to fund capital expenses.

The two proposals would raise a combined maximum of $823.6 million in new revenue for IPS if voters approve them, although IPS has estimated the total to be closer to $810 million. If voters reject the ballot questions, the district would not be able to implement certain aspects of Rebuilding Stronger, Superintendent Aleesia Johnson previously told Chalkbeat

Meanwhile, the district’s innovation charter schools have had ongoing discussions with IPS regarding sharing operating referendum funds, said Andy Seibert, executive director of KIPP Indy Public Schools, which runs three innovation charter schools.

“We’ve really appreciated the conversations with IPS,” Seibert said on Monday. “And I think those conversations are set to continue when we come back from break.”

How much referendum money the district could ultimately share with charter schools in its innovation network is still unclear.

But both innovation and non-innovation charter schools have called for fair funding from the referendum. Charter supporters have said that, based on financial figures district officials have publicly presented, innovation charters would receive $1,650 less per pupil than traditional public schools from the operating referendum if voters approve it.

Independent charters, meanwhile, would receive no new funding, and have said that the referendum would increase the gap in public funding between their students and traditional public students to more than $10,000 per student.

Officials estimate that the two ballot questions combined would increase property tax revenue by about $72 a year for a house valued at $138,500, the median value of homes within IPS boundaries.

The certification process for both ballot questions must be completed by Feb. 17 in order for them to appear on the ballot in May.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Decatur Township launches innovation school for high-ability students

2022-12-20T13:00:00+00:00

Decatur Township will transform its high-ability program into Marion County’s first innovation school outside of Indianapolis Public Schools.

The Decatur High Ability Academy will launch in the next school year, and will exclusively serve high-ability students who officials say are often overlooked. Decatur district officials also hope the new school will help expand its high-ability program, which serves more than 90 students in grades 3-6 and shares space with the district’s School for Excellence alternative high school on the southwest side of Indianapolis.

Decatur’s announcement on Friday also marks a new phase for the innovation school model, which allows for more operational flexibilities and exemptions from union contracts. Although a 2015 state law enacted allows for the model statewide, it has been used almost exclusively by IPS as a way to collaborate with competing charter schools. (Theodore College and Career Academy in Gary previously operated as an innovation school before closing.)

While many IPS innovation schools are run by charter operators, Decatur’s new school won’t be a charter. It will be overseen by a board of directors.

The public reception to the high-ability school could also be quite different from the track record in IPS, where the innovation model — which can be used to offer niche educational programming but also to improve struggling traditional public schools — has sometimes been met with open hostility.

Launching the Decatur High Ability Academy as an innovation school means it will be open to students outside of Decatur Township, which as a district generally does not accept students beyond its borders.

“Everything we do is centered around our students and what’s best for kids,” said Assistant Superintendent Stephanie Hofer. “And without any exception we are doing what’s best for kids right now and we’re very proud of that.”

Officials say the academy will have certain flexibility in curriculum and staffing decisions. As an innovation school, the staff will not be considered part of the Decatur Education Association, the local teachers’ union. But Superintendent Matt Prusiecki said salaries for the staff at the High Ability Academy will be the same as those for district staff in the union, if not higher.

“We will never, ever penalize someone that wants to be able to work in this innovation opportunity,” he said.

District officials hope that the new High Ability Academy will enroll up to 200 students next year. The school is also receiving $900,000 from the Mind Trust, a nonprofit that incubates charter and innovation schools in the Indianapolis area.

Admission into the high-ability program features a variety of factors, including state test scores, scores on the third grade state reading test, and teacher recommendations.

The school will continue the current program’s emphasis on project-based learning. The program features an innovation hub that includes a sound booth and presentation room where students can work on hands-on projects that are part of the curriculum.

The unique approach has challenged students like Emme and Noah McFarland, who enjoy the program’s emphasis on hands-on learning. Their mother, Juli McFarland, said the high-ability program gives them the opportunity to solve problems.

“They are told, ‘This is what we would like for you to do,’ but they can take it and they can make it their own,” she said.

The school will grow beyond the third floor of the shared building and move into part of the second floor, where officials plan to build another innovation hub for the school.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Corrections and clarifications: A previous version of this story included an incorrect amount of funding that the Mind Trust gave the Decatur High Ability Academy.

James Whitcomb Riley School 43 joins Indianapolis Public Schools innovation network as arts school

2022-12-16T02:13:12+00:00

James Whitcomb Riley School 43 will become a visual and performing arts school starting in fall 2023. It is the latest school to join the Indianapolis Public Schools’ innovation network under an agreement the school board approved on Thursday.

The four-year agreement will allow Edison School of the Arts to run School 43 as an innovation school, which has operational autonomy from the district and an exemption from union contracts under state law. The school board approved the new agreement unanimously.

Both Edison and School 43 will be K-8 schools through at least June 2027.

Most innovation schools in IPS are run by charter operators, but a few — such as Edison — have become innovation schools without inviting in a charter operator. School 43, as a sister school to Edison, will also not have a charter operator.

The school board also unanimously approved the renewal of a five-year agreement with Matchbook Learning at Wendell Phillips School 63. The preK-8 charter school joined the district’s innovation network in 2018-19 as a restart school — an underperforming school in need of academic improvement.

Matchbook still had proficiency levels below statewide and districtwide averages for English and math on the state ILearn test. District officials noted, however, that the school has increased its enrollment, and staff retention rates mirror the IPS average.

The new agreement between Matchbook and IPS includes mandatory school visits from IPS as well as a data review, and allows the district the opportunity to implement a performance improvement plan.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

School 43 may become a visual and performing arts school

2022-12-14T20:51:43+00:00

James Whitcomb Riley School 43 could transform into a visual and performing arts school next year under an innovation agreement with Edison School of the Arts that Indianapolis Public Schools commissioners will consider on Thursday.

Under the agreement, Edison School of the Arts would operate School 43, which would gain innovation status that gives it autonomy from some district and union rules.

The vote would change the direction once more for School 43, which has cycled through multiple principals, faced staffing challenges, and reconfigured its grades.

If approved, School 43 will be led next year by James Hill, whom the Edison school has been preparing to head its next campus. Hill recounted his previous experience as principal improving academic performance at the struggling Andrew J. Brown Academy in Indianapolis.

“They call me a turnaround principal, but I don’t believe any school should have to be turned around,” Hill told the IPS board on Tuesday. “I think if we just do the job, we’ll get rid of that term someday.”

The change is part of the district’s Rebuilding Stronger plan, which seeks to improve educational equity by expanding specialized academic programs to reach more students of color.

State law gives innovation schools operational autonomy and an exemption from union contracts. Most innovation schools within IPS are run by charter operators, which are independent entities but receive public funds to run schools. Edison was a district-run school that became an innovation school without inviting in a charter operator.

The school serves students in the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood and will keep its neighborhood boundaries in 2023-24. Beginning in 2024-25, it will open to students in a broader area, known as Zones 1 and 2 in the district’s new Rebuilding Stronger plan. Zones 1 and 2 encompass the western and northern parts of the district.

School 43 will remain K-8 through June 2027. The Rebuilding Stronger plan will break up other K-8 schools into separate elementary and middle schools next school year.

Thursday’s vote would place School 43 under the direction of Edison, which runs one of the district’s most popular schools. It has received more than 2½ applications for every seat available, officials said Tuesday.

Like other schools, Edison saw a drop in proficiency levels in both math and English on the state ILearn test from 2019 to 2021. Even so, its proficiency levels mostly have remained above the districtwide average. Now 12.7% of Edison students score proficient in both math and English.

By contrast, School 43 had among the lowest combined proficiency rates in the district — just 1.5%.

Officials are banking on arts programming to engage more students of color and help boost academic outcomes. This school year, roughly 79% of School 43’s students are Black, according to state data.

Officials noted that Edison’s academic performance for students of color outpaces the district’s. A higher percentage of Hispanic and Black students passed the English and math sections on the latest 2022 ILearn than in the district as a whole.

School 43 is also in line to receive roughly $5.5 million in capital referendum funding — if voters approve a district ballot measure in May — that would help renovate the school for arts and academic programs. Those improvements would include a black box theater, sound booth, and a science lab.

Board to consider renewing Matchbook as restart school

On Thursday the school board also will consider renewing its innovation agreement with the Matchbook Learning charter school at Wendell Phillips School 63. Matchbook is one of nine innovation “restart” charter schools assigned to improve academics at underperforming schools.

The school has had mixed academic scores. Students in all racial and ethnic subgroups performed below IPS and statewide average on the English section of last spring’s ILearn tests.

But in math, Hispanic students and English language learners performed above the IPS average. Pass rates for Black students, white students, and students receiving subsidized meals, a measure of poverty, fell below the district and statewide averages.

The proposed five-year agreement with Matchbook would include stronger accountability measures, including the district performing mandatory school visits and reviews of data.

District officials pointed out that the innovation school increased enrollment and has a staff retention rate similar to the IPS average.

“It’s a really positive school culture environment. You feel it when you walk in there,” Innovation Schools Director Brian Dickey said. “It’s a school where the [English language learner] population has increased over time, and I think we saw evidence of really consistent bilingual outreach between families and school staff.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Schools nixes plan for Global Prep charter to run program at Harshman Middle

2022-11-15T14:24:32+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools has reversed course on its plan under Rebuilding Stronger to have a charter operator run a dual language program at Harshman Middle School as part of the district’s Rebuilding Stronger revitalization plan, according to a district email to parents on Monday evening.

Instead, IPS would allow Harshman, a traditional public school, to run the program itself. Under the latest version of Rebuilding Stronger, Harshman Middle School would offer two programs: one for high-ability students continuing from the elementary grades at Sidener Academy, and one for students continuing from elementary grades in dual-language program schools such as Potter School 74 and Global Prep Academy.

The about-face comes after parent resistance to an earlier version of the Rebuilding Stronger proposal that called for Global Prep Academy — a “restart” charter school within the district’s innovation network — to run the English-Spanish program at Harshman, which is on the near eastside.

The move would have essentially split the middle school into two distinct programs with separate staff. But Harshman staff and parents from Potter and Sidener questioned the feasibility of running two separate programs in a building meant for one school. They also argued that Harshman was prepared to specialize in a dual language program.

The disagreement over Harshman’s future — now resolved in the Rebuilding Stronger blueprint — is a window into the kinds of concerns that different school communities still have regarding Rebuilding Stronger ahead of the school board’s vote on the proposal scheduled for Nov. 17.

In the email to parents sent Monday night, the district said it would no longer partner with Global Prep to run the dual language program. Instead, IPS would directly run both programs, the district said.

“This means Harshman will operate as a middle school for high-ability students and include a dual language track for students who qualify,” the district said in the email. “Students who qualify for both high-ability and dual language will be able to access both.”

A district spokesperson said IPS will review changes to the plan on Tuesday. An IPS school board agenda review session is scheduled for Tuesday at 6 p.m.

The announcement comes after roughly 300 people signed a petition calling for the district to allow Harshman to run a dual language program itself, without the involvement of Global Prep.

Harshman, Potter, and Arsenal Technical High School had proposed the idea of a K-12 dual-language program to district officials before the pandemic hit, parents and staff said.

The tweak to the plan would not change the timing of the new programming under Rebuilding Stronger, according to the district’s email to parents. Beginning in the 2024-25 school year, Potter — a K-6 school — would serve grades K-5. Harshman, currently serving grades 7 and 8, would become a 6-8 school. Global Prep would remain a K-8 school.

Last month, the board reviewed an updated version of Rebuilding Stronger, which would close several schools and reconfigure grades in an effort to create a more equitable academic environment and provide a more stable financial foundation for the district.

Rebuilding Stronger map as of Oct. 27, prior to this change

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

IPS plans not to renew innovation schools Urban Act, SUPER School

2022-09-30T11:00:00+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools plans to end agreements with two of its innovation network schools that are slated to merge with two other schools under the district’s proposed Rebuilding Stronger reorganization plan.

The move would mean that current students would be educated in schools firmly under district control, while most staff would be forced to reapply for their jobs.

The district’s more than 25 innovation network schools are given more autonomy through an innovation agreement. Staff in these schools are not unionized. The majority of them are charter schools, but some — such as SUPER School — do not have a charter.

If their innovation agreements end, Urban Act and SUPER School 19 would be the third and fourth schools to be removed from the innovation network by the district since the creation of such schools under state law in 2014.

The two schools joined the network for the 2018-19 school year amid high hopes. But both schools oversaw a drop in student achievement since taking over two traditional public schools in 2018-19.

District officials plan to recommend that innovation agreements with the two schools should not be renewed at a board meeting in November, citing the poor academic performance.

The recommendation for non-renewal comes just as the board considers merging the schools with two others under the Rebuilding Stronger plan.

The mergers are among the many sweeping recommendations outlined in that plan, which attempts to bring a more equitable education to students while also addressing declining enrollment and challenging finances.

Under the plan, students and staff at Center for Inquiry (CFI) at School 2 would move to Urban Act to create a new CFI school. Paul Miller School 114 students, meanwhile, would move to SUPER School 19.

The mergers would alleviate issues at both School 114 and the CFI at School 2, which have buildings in poor condition. School 114, which has dwindling enrollment, could see a boost in student population by taking over SUPER School. Merging the CFI at School 2, meanwhile, would bring the academic program to a school building in better condition in a different part of town.

IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson acknowledged that while the pandemic may have disrupted learning at the two innovation network schools, they are still not showing the level of progress officials want.

“We still have students who are being served in a building, and we need to be able to say we believe that they are best positioned for success,” Johnson said. “And right now if you look at the data it just has not [borne] that out, the progress that we would want to see after five years.”

Declining scores drove IPS proposal

Morgan Galbreth, the chair of Urban Act Academy’s board of directors, expressed disappointment with the potential end of the school’s innovation agreement.

“In the last four years, we’ve been able to transform a school that was completely different when we opened our doors,” Galbreth said.

SUPER School did not comment on its non-renewal recommendation.

The suggested removal from the network would mean an end of autonomy for the schools, which joined the innovation network in 2018 under different circumstances.

Urban Act Academy — which is run by a charter operator and authorized by the mayor’s office— took over the failing Washington Irving School 14 as one of the network’s “restart” schools. It was tasked with the challenging job of improving achievement at a school that, under the state’s previous A-F school accountability system, received D’s and F’s.

SUPER School 19, meanwhile, converted to an innovation school amid significant pushback. The school’s principal at the time, John McClure, offered to convert to innovation status as a way to stress its theme of action-based learning. He also received roughly $25,000 in startup grant funding from the Mind Trust, an Indianapolis nonprofit that grows and supports charter and innovation schools.

But test scores at both schools have declined since they joined the innovation network.

The share of third graders at Urban Act who passed the state’s IREAD test dropped from roughly 76% in 2017-18, before Urban Act took over, to 50% 2018-19. And after skipping a year in 2019-20, when the state did not administer the test due to the pandemic, the passing rate was roughly 46% in 2020-21. Its latest passing rate is 50%.

ILearn proficiency rates in both English and math have also remained low — starting at roughly 1.4% in 2018-19, dropping to 0% in 2020-21 and inching back up to 1.6% in 2021-22.

Galbreth said she is not necessarily elated about Urban Act’s scores, but argued the school has something special beyond just numbers.

“It’s got culture and community, and we really believe that had it not been for the pandemic, we would be further along than we are now,” she said. “But what we can say is our school community stands on its own and is a truly transformed educational institution.”

SUPER School, meanwhile, posted a roughly 84% IRead passing rate for third graders a year before its transformation, but the latest scores from last spring show roughly 30% of students passed. ILearn scores also dropped: Roughly 8% of students were proficient in English and math in 2018-19, but just 3% were in 2021-22.

“These downward trends are more accelerated than at other schools, even when taking COVID into consideration,” the district said in a statement. “The purpose of Innovation conversion was to accelerate academic outcomes. In this case, that did not happen.”

Staff would have to reapply for jobs

Ending the innovation agreements and merging the schools could leave staff at Urban Act and SUPER scrambling to find jobs.

Although the district said there would be no reduction in staff under the Rebuilding Stronger plan — its human resources department will extend offers to staff forced to move elsewhere — that job guarantee would not extend to staff at innovation schools.

In general, staff would need to reapply for their jobs since both schools currently hire them separately from IPS. However, special education and English-language learner staff at SUPER School would be exempt from that requirement, since they are hired by IPS, according to the district.

School 114’s principal would lead the consolidated SUPER School next year, the district said, and the current SUPER principal would need to reapply for another position at the school or elsewhere. The principal at Urban Act Academy would need to apply to IPS in order to keep her role at the school.

The school board is expected to vote on the broader Rebuilding Stronger plan in November.

Correction: A previous version of this story included incorrect IREAD and ILEARN test scores for SUPER School 19.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

After troubles in IPS, Ignite charter school rebrands

2022-08-25T12:00:00+00:00

Single-digit proficiency rates. Plummeting attendance. A work environment described in a former employee’s lawsuit as “one big mess.”

Ignite Achievement Academy came to and left Indianapolis Public Schools within just four years under challenging circumstances. Some low test scores from Elder Diggs School 42 — the traditional school Ignite took over — dropped even lower on Ignite’s watch, while attendance fell below the district average and staff retention rates became the worst in the district.

These falling scores and other poor metrics led Ignite to become just the second charter school to not have its partnership renewed with the district’s innovation network.

Yet despite the school’s challenges, the mayor’s Office of Education and Innovation (or OEI) – the school’s authorizer – has allowed the school to continue operating as an independent charter school under a new name.

Ignite has transitioned from an IPS-affiliated restart charter school to the Genius School, an independent K-6 charter school in a new location near the city’s Fairgrounds neighborhood. It is on probationary status due to poor performance.

Patrick McAlister, the director of the OEI office that has the power to revoke charters for mayor-sponsored charter schools approved by the Indianapolis Charter School Board, was not made available for an interview. But in a statement, McAlister said that the office is still monitoring the progress of the school.

“The terms of the probationary status focus on a successful transition to their new location after ending the innovation agreement with Indianapolis Public Schools and demonstrating academic improvements over the course of the next school year,” he said.

A student at Ignite Achievement Academy, which has since rebranded as the Genius School, reads about earthquakes.

The office has set relatively ambitious goals for the school. By fall of 2023, for example, at least 8.9% of its students must be proficient in both English and math on the statewide ILEARN test. That’s the average for mayor-sponsored charter schools in 2021, and a sizable increase over the 2% deemed proficient in 2022.

An OEI spokesperson said in a statement that the benchmark will likely change given the recent test results, but did not share whether that goal would move up or down. Even if it doesn’t meet those benchmarks, the Genius School may not face immediate closure.

Turmoil came even before the school’s removal from IPS. Last year, a discrimination lawsuit against the school filed by its former curriculum director painted Ignite as a place that forced out white teachers while engaging in cronyism. The lawsuit was later settled for $48,500 and dismissed in March, according to WRTV.

The ex-employee, who is white, claimed she was fired after discovering that one of the school’s teachers had an active criminal warrant.

“Morale, as expressed by former teachers and staff, is very low, and is indicated by such comments as ‘one big mess,’ ‘broken beyond repair by nepotism/cronyism,’ ‘unstable,’” the former employee’s lawsuit stated.

Ignite denied the claims of discrimination and low morale in response to the lawsuit.

The school declined to let a Chalkbeat reporter visit, and did not make school officials available for interviews.

“We are proud of all of the growth that students made through the COVID pandemic over the past two school years,” Ignite cofounder Shy-Quon Ely said in a statement. “Our students and staff continue to improve and our Board and staff remain committed to igniting the genius that is in each and every student.”

Low proficiency, high turnover

Ignite joined the IPS innovation network in 2017-18, and was tasked with turning around School 42 in the city’s Riverside neighborhood.

School cofounders Ely and Brooke Beavers inherited a traditional public school that had received consistently failing grades from the state. In 2019, the neighborhood had a poverty rate of 35% – higher than the countywide average. The majority of students were Black.

Ignite focused on building an uplifting, community-oriented school.

Ignite Achievement Academy teacher Julia Barker reads to her class from a book about the Haitian earthquake.

“We wanted to make sure that we had a lot of opportunities for parents to be involved, for them to come in and see their children,” Ely told Chalkbeat in 2018. He is an alumnus of a fellowship program with the Mind Trust, a nonprofit that has incubated Indianapolis charter schools. (The Mind Trust later supported the district’s decision not to renew its partnership with Ignite.)

Beavers left the school at the end of 2017-18.

The school built an Afrocentric curriculum, exposing students to Black history and culture to strengthen self-worth. An Ubuntu Council — a sort of parent-teacher group — engaged the school with the broader community.

Academic results, however, fluctuated. Passing rates on the third grade IREAD test dropped from 45.9% in 2018-19 to 39.6% in 2021-22; the test was not administered in 2019-20.

Under fire from the district, Ely noted that the pandemic hurt enrollment and community engagement.

But as staff retention rates dropped below 50% for the 2021-22 school year, Ignite’s former director of curriculum and instruction filed a discrimination lawsuit in March 2021 against Ignite, claiming that she was fired from the school because she was white.

The complaint from Kelly Hershey, who was hired in 2019, states that later that year, she discovered one absentee teacher had an active warrant and pending felony charges for strangulation and battery in the presence of a child.

Hershey voiced concern to the school’s principal, Jessica English. The next day, a school official told Hershey she was terminated for “illegally digging into the private information and criminal history report of a staff member,” the lawsuit claimed.

The information about the teacher’s warrant and pending charges, listed on the state’s online court case portal, is public and not illegal to access.

“(Ignite) did not fire Hershey for ‘illegally digging into private information … ,’” the complaint alleged. “(Ignite) fired her because she is white.”

An attorney for the school said the teacher in question is no longer employed by the school, but did not specify when the teacher left the school.

The complaint described other racial problems that the school disputed, including allegations that the school effectively forced a large share of white teachers to quit and fired others due to poor performance reviews, and a dispute over whether Hershey made racist remarks.

The lawsuit also alleged that Nadia Miller, the school’s chief of staff, was vice president of the company that supplied electronic equipment and IT services for the school. The school denied Hershey’s claim.

State business record filings show that a person named Nadia Miller was listed as the president of the company before it dissolved in September 2021. Miller still serves as the Genius School’s chief of staff.

A fresh start

Shawanda Tyson knows that Ignite went through troubling times.

But her two sons, now at the Paramount Brookside charter school that’s unaffiliated with IPS, still miss the school.

“The data didn’t look good, but what they gave the kids was priceless,” Tyson said. “They also helped them along their journey.”

She considered enrolling her younger son at the new Genius School, she said, but ultimately decided against it. Yet now, he’s missing the daily morning meditations and non-traditional ways of learning, she said.

“If this school doesn’t work out,” she said, “we might have to go back.”

The rebranded Genius School bills itself as uplifting “the post-pandemic child through offering a unique and holistic learning environment,” according to its description on the Enroll Indy website.

It’s unclear where enrollment stands at the school and how many families moved from Ignite to Genius. The school is sharing space with Geo Next Generation High School, a charter school also unaffiliated with IPS.

In its statement, the school did not address questions of enrollment, nor how it plans to reach the goals set by the Office of Education and Innovation.

Those goals includes increasing pass rates on the state’s IREAD literacy test for third graders from 39.6% to 74% by next year, reaching a 90% attendance rate for this school year, and outperforming students’ assigned neighborhood schools in two of four categories: proficiency in math or English, and growth in math or English.

The school, meanwhile, remains on the probationary status that OEI assigned it last December – the second level in OEI’s three-level performance improvement process, which ends with a potential revocation of a school’s charter.

Falling short of its goals, however, doesn’t mean the school faces automatic closure.

“The decision to revoke a charter is serious and can significantly affect students, staff, and families,” an OEI spokesperson said in a statement. “For that reason, OEI reserves the right to determine the best course of action at the appropriate time and informed by actions taken up until that point.”

The school’s seven-year charter term ends in June 2024. The Indianapolis Charter School Board may decide whether to recommend a charter renewal to the mayor by December 2023.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated when the Indianapolis Charter School Board would decide whether to recommend the Genius School for a charter renewal. This story was also updated to reflect the departure of Ignite cofounder Brooke Beavers from the school.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Before opening, this Indianapolis charter recruits its first students

2022-06-09T00:15:16+00:00

A young girl tugs on her mother’s hand as the two weave their way through a crowd of people waiting in line for homemade tacos. She is focused on a star-throwing game in the shade of a blue tent.

The girl gets her mom’s attention, and when they get closer to the tent, Francisco Valdiosera, waiting nearby, sees his chance to get his first question in: “What grade is she in?”

Valdiosera is out on a recent sunny Sunday afternoon at the local taco festival at the Lafayette Place Shopping Center to find families interested in enrolling in Monarca Academy, a new charter school slated to open this fall. Valdiosera, the school’s executive director, has been on this mission for the past several weeks to form his first class of students.

In Indianapolis, a city friendly to school choice, new charter schools open each year, and they all face the same challenge: Who’s going to go to their school?

Some new schools are able to attract students through a reputation earned from other pre-existing branches — people know the name. Other charters are stepping in to run an existing school.

But for charter schools like Monarca, which is starting from scratch, finding students can be a challenge. For its first year, Monarca is only enrolling sixth graders, which is not a natural transition point within Indianapolis Public Schools or Wayne Township. So, Valdiosera is looking for students who still need to choose a school or want to switch with just over two months left before the school year begins.

A sign promoting new charter school Monarca Academy is seen in front of an Indianapolis grocery store on June 5. Patrons were milling around the Lafayette Place Shopping Center for the Indy Taco Fest where Monarca Academy representatives were speaking to community members.

Monarca is competing with 11 districts and dozens of charter schools in Indianapolis to be the best fit for a student. As a new school, Valdiosera doesn’t have results to show families and instead must rely on the promise of his vision for the school.

“A new school has difficulty enrolling,” Valdiosera said. “One of the things that parents will say even if they’re very, very interested in the model, is ‘Well, we’ll wait a year to see if you’re still around. We’ve seen what has happened in the past.’”

The school currently has 20 students enrolled, but hopes to open in August with about 50. Monarca will be located in a wing of Northwest Middle School, after reaching an agreement with IPS at the end of April to use the building for one year.

Valdiosera is from Michoacán, Mexico, home of the monarch butterfly, the school’s logo and namesake. The butterfly, he said, symbolizes many things, including the personal growth he hopes students will see at the academy. The plan is to grow the number of students gradually, to eventually serve around 700 students from sixth to twelfth grades by 2028.

‘I don’t count the hours’

Valdiosera, dressed in a gray blazer over his new Monarca Academy T-shirt, stands among dozens of people in the heat of the taco festival. They’re eating mango slices and sipping piña coladas, while he stands offering a clipboard and pen to passing families.

Monarca Academy’s team is staffed by volunteers and their families in addition to existing board members and founding principal Felicia Sears. They gather around tables and under tents at events to make the community aware of the school.

Monarca Academy executive director Francisco Valdiosera waits for a family to pass by on June 5 at the Indy Taco Fest near the Indiana Discount Mall. While out at multiple festivals over the weekend, Valdiosera spoke to families from the Indianapolis area about enrolling at the charter school.

Every few minutes a family walks by, and Valdiosera tries to start a conversation. One family in particular doesn’t have any children heading to sixth grade, but they’re listening to what Valdiosera has to say. He emphasizes that Monarca is a free public school and will be working to make students college ready.

“So if you know anybody,” he adds, trying to raise his voice above the Latin rock playing in the background, “Monarca is going to be a great option for them.”

Valdiosera is so busy preparing for the first day of school, he said he has a lot of Netflix to catch up on. He balances chauffeuring his three kids to and from school and various appointments with planning food services, interviewing possible teachers, and meeting with parents.

However, when asked how many hours he spends on his work, he said, “I don’t count the hours,” he said. “If I did, that means there’s something about the work that I’m not liking.”

While most parents did not immediately enroll their children during the festival, by the end of the weekend, Valdiosera said they had collected more than 100 leads on possible students and families.

‘Based on trust’

In the same weekend at St. Gabriel International Festival, Valdiosera spent almost half an hour listening to the concerns of a mother who homeschools her children. Other parents smiled and politely declined to talk. They already have a school, they said. Others took the informational handouts and stowed them in bags.

Kimberly Neal-Brannum was in a similar position in 2020 when she enrolled the first students at Believe Circle City High School where she is the founder and executive director. While her in-person efforts were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Neal-Brannum said it was important to engage with parents and students when possible.

“Before you have a building, before you have results and data to share, parents are going to enroll their scholars based on trust and whether they feel like they can trust the person that’s going to be leading the school,” Neal-Brannum said.

Monarca is partnering with Enroll Indy, a local organization that provides resources to parents to help them choose and enroll at schools. Statistically, Indianapolis parents signing up their children for school during the late enrollment period are more likely to be from low-income households. Over the past several years, Enroll Indy has successfully narrowed the economic gap between early and late enrolled students. But Valdiosera hopes he can still provide a quality option for parents who have yet to decide.

Earlier this year, when Kindezi Academy announced it would be closing, parent Star Running said she wasn’t sure about her next steps. She had limited time to get her daughter Caelyn enrolled in another school and was also planning to move.

Izel Valdiosera shows a young girl how to play a star throwing game the volunteers at Monarca Academy brought with them to the Indy Taco Fest on June 5.

But just as she was starting to worry in late May, Running met Valdiosera outside Kindezi Academy. She said she was hopeful after hearing about Monarca Academy. After discussing it with her daughter, they enrolled by the end of May. Running said she is excited about the diversity of backgrounds Valdiosera said the school would foster. The family, who is Native American, said they were excited about the possibility of teaching other students about their identity.

“I get told a lot living out here that there’s really no Native Americans out here at all,” she said. “That people never meet any or see any, so I think I’m excited to bring something to the school and teach them a little bit about who we are and where we come from.”

Helen Rummel is a summer reporting intern covering education in the Indianapolis area. Contact Helen at hrummel@chalkbeat.org.

How IPS’ innovation school deal with Kindezi Academy fell apart

2022-02-25T21:57:09+00:00

Kindezi Academy seemed like it was on the right track.

Granted, the test scores weren’t where they should be. But the school had laid a strong foundation that officials saw as a promising sign for eventually producing better academic outcomes.

In the six years since Kindezi was brought in, the charter operator had turned a struggling eastside elementary school into a safer, more supportive place. Kindezi introduced a solid curriculum and carefully tracked student progress. Unlike many schools, its predominantly Black teaching staff reflected the racial makeup of its students. Educators formed warm, caring relationships with students.

Indianapolis Public Schools wanted Kindezi to keep running the school. So it came as a surprise — even to the district — when Kindezi walked away from the negotiating table and announced last week that the school would shut down in June.

What went wrong?

Both IPS and Kindezi officials cited academic reasons for the closure: “We fully admit that our objective outcomes weren’t where we needed them to be,” said Kevin Kubacki, executive director of the Neighborhood Charter Network, the nonprofit that manages Kindezi.

But Kubacki also said he couldn’t see a path forward under the terms IPS laid out. The district offered a one-year extension of the contract that he said set unachievable goals for the short timeframe during the pandemic.

On top of that, with upcoming discussions on school closures, IPS had indicated that Kindezi might not be able to stay in its aging building, Kubacki said.

As he saw it, Kindezi would just face closure next year if it had taken IPS’ deal.

IPS officials stood by the academic terms of their offer: “Don’t deny at all that those were and are ambitious,” Chief Portfolio Officer Jamie VanDeWalle said. “We definitely hold high expectations for all schools of all types.”

But some questioned why Kindezi decided to shut down — especially at the last minute — and whether IPS should have done more. Ultimately, IPS’ inability to strike a deal with a charter partner it wanted to keep has left more than 400 students scrambling to find new schools at the last minute.

That, IPS Board President Evan Hawkins said, “must be avoidable going forward.”

‘It’s not all about the test scores’

On Tuesday night, Kindezi parent Elora Cunningham went to a meeting about the closure. She was handed a paper listing other schools she could pick from with higher test scores.

“It’s just like, it’s not all about the test scores,” said Cunningham, who has three children attending Kindezi.

It bothered her that officials she’d never met could only talk about the numbers at that meeting, particularly when the school — officially called Kindezi Academy at Joyce Kilmer School 69 — provided safety, stability, and comfort to students in a low-income neighborhood.

“If it was their kids, they would be doing everything and beyond to not let this happen,” Cunningham said. “Our children are not a number. They are people. They are the future of Indianapolis and everything. And you just threw them to the side.”

Cunningham had carefully selected the school three years ago after vetting how educators would support her son, who has autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

At Kindezi, her son was flourishing under teachers who cared about him as a person and not just his grades, she said. As he progressed, teachers told her that her son could go on to earn a high school diploma. “For a parent, that is the best news ever with a kid that has a disability,” Cunningham said.

The news that Kindezi wasn’t doing well academically came as a shock to Cunningham — let alone that the building’s future could be in question. Just 7% of students passed ILEARN in language arts, and 5% in math. Officials said there had been a meeting in November, but she hadn’t known about it or heard that the school potentially faced closure.

“They didn’t give the parents a chance to help Kindezi out to improve anything,” she said. “They blindsided everybody.”

The lack of community engagement on school transitions has been a constant complaint in IPS, particularly on major decisions such as when charter operators have stepped in at struggling schools as Kindezi did or when IPS closed several high schools.

With the potential for more school closures looming amid budget problems and with other innovation school contracts coming up for renewal, advocates say IPS must improve on involving families earlier and more meaningfully.

“We should demand more community engagement prior to decisions like this,” said Brandon Brown, CEO of The Mind Trust, a charter advocacy organization that supports IPS’ innovation network.

IPS anticipates having to close underutilized buildings or ones too costly to renovate as part of its efforts to level out its budget. The district has conducted an assessment of its facilities but not yet made those results public, and IPS’ conversations about how or when officials will decide to close schools have so far remained private.

At Kindezi, considerations about the future of its outdated building clearly came into play, even though IPS officials haven’t directly addressed it.

When asked about Kindezi’s concerns about the building’s future, Hawkins acknowledged the poor conditions at many older IPS buildings. He noted that administrators are working through “very dense and complicated information” and plan to hold a series of community meetings on potential closures.

Brown said he believed IPS and Kindezi should have worked to keep the school open.

“Trends were positive. Enrollment is up,” he said. “Things aren’t perfect, but we would have rather had a creative solution that ensured stability for the community that could have at least served as a bridge to a long-term solution — because we did realize there are a number of long-term facility decisions that need to be made at some point.”

‘There should be clarity’

Families are supposed to receive more notice than those at Kindezi had.

But IPS and Kindezi bypassed a safeguard in their contract meant to ensure half a year’s notice if either party backed out.

IPS ended another innovation school contract in December but allowed more time for the Kindezi decision — a move officials later realized was a mistake.

“The 180-day clause is very valuable,” VanDeWalle said. “In the future, I think we’ll stick to those more than we did.”

She said the district also intends to improve how it stays in touch with innovation schools in order to be part of performance improvement conversations earlier on.

Hawkins, the board president, agreed that IPS needs to examine how to better work with innovation schools on performance before contract renewal discussions: “Those are questions we’re going to have to ask.”

Still, innovation schools are not judged on academic outcomes alone. One innovation school leader said IPS needs more transparency around its process.

“What does it look like to know that you’re doing well?” said Mariama Shaheed, founder and CEO of Global Preparatory Academy at Riverside 44. While she had a feeling IPS would seek to renew their partnership this month — Global Prep is often held up as an exemplar of innovation schools — Shaheed said the district didn’t clearly affirm along the way that the school was meeting the mark. “There should be clarity, especially as more schools are coming online.”

Like Kindezi, Global Prep intervened at a struggling school and sees its performance affected by neighborhood factors like student mobility.

Global Prep’s test scores fall well below its targets, which Shaheed said are intentionally set high. On ILEARN, about 11% of students passed the language arts portion and 10% passed in math, both below the average passing rates at IPS’ traditional schools. Half of Global Prep’s third-graders passed the state reading exam, a proportion Shaheed hopes to lift to 80% in five years.

“Are we very far away? Absolutely. But our goal is to get there,” Shaheed said. “We don’t want to send the message that our students are not capable.”

The relationship between an innovation charter school and IPS adds a layer of complexity that other schools don’t have to deal with. Innovation schools can tap into district resources like a school building, transportation, or special education services. But IPS also becomes another player to whom the charter school is responsible.

“People don’t think about this, but innovation schools have so many authorizers, so many people they’re reporting to,” Shaheed said. “The communication and partnership part has been the most challenging.”

And that can get political, said Joshua Glazer, associate professor of education policy at George Washington University.

“There’s a high degree of interdependence on each other — they need each other whether they like it or not,” Glazer said. “Their success demands that they find ways to work together.”

When they don’t, the damage can look like hundreds of students uprooted with just a few months’ notice. No officials or advocates contest the academic rationale for Kindezi’s closure. But did it have to happen this way?

“I would hate for these things to continue to happen, and our parents aren’t aware of what’s going on,” said Ontay Johnson, executive director of the local parent advocacy group EmpowerED Families. “That’s just a crisis. We have to do better.”

Stephanie Wang covers education in Indiana, including pre-K, K-12 schools, and higher education. Contact her at swang@chalkbeat.org.

IPS likely to close Joyce Kilmer School 69 after losing innovation charter partner

2022-02-23T01:11:10+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools will likely close Joyce Kilmer School 69 on the eastside after losing the charter partner tasked with turning around the school.

Kindezi Academy, the charter operator that revamped the school in 2016, announced Friday that it would end its partnership with IPS and shut down operations in June due to low student outcomes and facility issues.

Instead of finding a new partner or running the school itself, officials told Kindezi families Tuesday night that the district will recommend closing the school building. The closure would affect more than 400 students in grades K-6, who would be given priority to enroll at other IPS choice schools with transportation provided next year.

“It’s not a very long timeline,” said Jamie VanDeWalle, IPS’ chief portfolio officer. “If we thought we could stand up an excellent school in 3.5 months, that’s absolutely what we would do.”

The IPS board will discuss the end of the Kindezi partnership and recommendation to close School 69 at its regular meeting Thursday night.

Kindezi is the second partnership between IPS and a charter operator to end this school year. In December, IPS said it was cutting ties with Ignite Achievement Academy, the charter operator in charge of turning around Elder Diggs School 42. The district intends to partner with a new charter school, Liberty Grove, to run School 42.

In Kindezi’s case, IPS offered a one-year extension of the contract in December before considering a longer-term renewal of the partnership. But the leader of Kindezi’s charter network said that wasn’t enough time to reach ambitious academic goals set by IPS, such as doubling ILEARN proficiency rates.

“We realized we were just going to be at the same place next year,” said Kevin Kubacki, executive director of the Neighborhood Charter Network, the nonprofit that runs Kindezi.

When Kindezi stepped in to manage Joyce Kilmer School 69, the school had been slated for state intervention after five consecutive years of F ratings. It was one of the first schools where IPS turned to a charter operator for a reboot.

While Kubacki feels Kindezi made strides in cultivating a safe environment and strong relationships between students and teachers, improved academic outcomes didn’t follow. In 2021, just 3.8% of students passed both math and English sections of the ILEARN. On the third-grade reading test, 42% of students passed, compared with the state average of 81%.

The school was also struggling with high student mobility and low attendance.

In addition, the district’s recent facilities assessment cast uncertainty over Kindezi’s future, Kubacki said. Facing the prospect of school closures amid budget deficits, IPS has been analyzing the state of its facilities, and board members have been discussing school consolidation in private meetings.

Kubacki described the building at 34th and Keystone as being in “incredible disrepair,” and said IPS didn’t follow through with planned renovations.

VanDeWalle acknowledged that the building needed substantial repairs. Still, once Kindezi Academy decided to cease operations, she said the short timeline presented the biggest factor in recommending closing School 69.

Many families and community members felt blindsided by the abrupt news that Kindezi was shutting down, said Barato Britt, president and CEO of the nearby Edna Martin Christian Center.

“It’s a gut punch,” Britt said after Tuesday night’s meeting with families. “It’s hard to call it anything else.”

Britt said parents felt they didn’t have an opportunity to voice their opinions before a decision was made, leaving them in the lurch when many are still dealing with the effects of the pandemic. He questioned Kindezi’s decision to pass up a one-year extension and said the sudden closure obscured any real conversation about the deteriorating condition of the building.

“We should not discount the importance of being honest, up front, and really engaging the parents and the stakeholders for the assets they are,” Britt said. “There has to be a better way to do this, even though these are never easy decisions obviously.”

Stephanie Wang covers Indiana education, including pre-K, K-12 schools, and higher education. Contact her at swang@chalkbeat.org.

IPS considers a new charter partner to run struggling westside school

2022-01-28T22:12:11+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools has nominated the former principal of a school that posted rising achievement and attendance to take over from the troubled Ignite Achievement Academy.

On Thursday, the IPS board heard a proposal to bring in Liberty Grove Schools to run School 42, a small K-6 school on the westside that has faced years of declining achievement that ultimately led IPS to not renew a contract with Ignite, its current operator.

After weeks of heated public meetings in which parents expressed dismay at being shut out of decisions on the school’s future, many applauded the choice of Liberty Grove.

“What I want is for the kids in this building to have a fair shot, to have the opportunities to grow, to get the education they deserve,” said parent Shawanda Tyson. “I appreciated Ignite’s creativity, but parts of the program obviously did not work.”

Commissioners took no action on Thursday. A proposed agreement with Liberty Grove, led by Executive Director Morrise Harbour, is scheduled to come back before the board this spring.

The school will drop Ignite Achievement Academy from its name on July 30, and until it has a new name will be known as Elder Diggs School 42.

The IPS board voted in December to not renew a contract with Ignite Achievement Academy, which has operated School 42 since 2017, citing drops in achievement, enrollment, and attendance, as well as low staff retention.

Ignite’s leadership threatened to take legal action to fight the decision, and later claimed it hadn’t intended to renew its partnership with IPS. The operator is slated to finish out the school year at the campus.

In a presentation to the board, IPS Chief Portfolio Officer Jamie VanDeWalle said the district had difficulty reaching out to Ignite families about plans for the school, because Ignite refused to share their contact information. Ignite’s Chief of Staff Nadia Miller denied this.

IPS administrators said participants in community meetings said they had wanted more forewarning about Ignite’s performance problems, and hoped to see experienced leadership take the helm.

The district believes it has found this quality in Harbour, who was the principal of a charter school in Washington, D.C., before becoming a 2020-2022 fellow at The Mind Trust, a nonprofit charter incubator in Indianapolis.

The district said Milanda Penn, formerly an assistant principal at Christel House Schools, a local network of charter schools, would serve as an assistant principal.

The district’s presentation highlighted rising student achievement and attendance rates under Harbour. It promised better collaboration with the new operator in order to address community concerns about the school not getting enough support from the district.

At the meeting, Harbour outlined the priorities of Liberty Grove Schools, including ensuring teacher effectiveness, choosing a rigorous curriculum, and addressing the social and emotional challenges of students in the community.

IPS Commissioner Taria Slack asked Harbour whether he intended to stay in Indianapolis, given that School 42 has seen years of leadership turnover.

“I have no reason or want to transition if given the opportunity to be the leader of Elder Diggs School 42,” he said. “I’ve experienced the peaks and valleys of being in school leadership. So a lot of the things that I may have to endure as a school leader turning around a school, I have endured that. That’s not going to push me away.”

Slack also asked VanDeWalle why the district didn’t consider operating School 42 itself, rather than bringing in another new innovation school operator.

VanDeWalle said the district sought an operator to begin the transition immediately, given the uncertainty and mixed messages about the school. Liberty Grove Schools, which has already received charter approval from the mayor’s office, was equipped to launch school in the fall, she said.

A statement from Ignite Achievement Academy said the school would continue to operate in another location. It has not disclosed where that would be.

Patrick McAlister, director of the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, which issued Ignite’s charter, said the office looked “forward to working collaboratively with them as they prepare for next year.”

“Partnering together the Office of Education Innovation and Ignite Achievement Academy will maintain Ignite’s school charter while also agreeing on a set of academic standards,” school head Shy-Quon Ely said in the statement. “We all want the best for the Ignite community and its Westside network of families and advocates.”

IPS won’t renew Ignite Achievement Academy contract

2021-12-17T16:48:08+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools will end ties with a charter school operator that tried and failed to improve one of the district’s turnaround schools.

The school board unanimously approved the district’s recommendation on Thursday to not renew its contract with Ignite Achievement Academy after a review of its five-year term found that Ignite’s students are performing worse than before the charter took control.

Next, the board must decide who will operate the Elder W. Diggs School 42 campus, which officials have said will remain open to its approximately 400 students.

IPS expects to announce plans for the school in January or early February, following additional community meetings.

“I know decisions are difficult when it comes to changing management,” Commissioner Diane Arnold said. “I think it’s essential if we say that innovation is the right path that we hold our innovation partners as accountable as we do our own district.”

Ignite next faces a charter decision from its authorizer, the Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, which placed it on probation earlier this month with a deadline to respond to concerns by Dec. 16. If it retains its charter, Ignite could continue to operate in another location.

Ignite co-founder and Head of School Shy-Quon Ely said in a statement that the school remains “steadfast in our focus and determination to educate our scholars and be a vital part of our greater Elder Diggs community.”

“While Ignite Achievement Academy is aware of the vote taken by the IPS Board, it should be noted that Ignite had no plans to renew the innovation agreement with IPS after this year,” the statement said. It did not address the status of the school’s charter.

In community meetings before the vote, Ely attributed the school’s faltering test scores and declining enrollment and staff retention to the challenges of the pandemic.

IPS Chief Portfolio Officer Jamie VanDeWalle said that while COVID had an impact on all schools, a comparison between Ignite and peer schools in the district showed the former still lagged behind.

Just 4% of Ignite students were proficient in math and English in 2021 — some of the lowest scores among innovation schools, according to a district presentation. Attendance dropped shortly after Ignite took over the school and remained consistently 10 points behind the district average, the presentation said, while enrollment dropped 30% this year.

The presentation also noted that successful innovation schools tended to have retained their original leadership. Ignite co-founder Brooke Beavers left the school in 2018.

In comments before the vote, Commissioner Taria Slack said it was important to speak with families when their school was struggling, not after a decision on its future has been made.

At public comment, Ontay Johnson, executive director of Empowered Families, also said he supported the decision, but asked how parents would be involved in the school’s future.

“What I struggle with is the collateral damage that Black and brown students continue to be in this broken education system,” Johnson said. “Whether you are an advocate for charter or public schools, both sides failed our babies at this school.”

IPS wants to end ties with a charter school. Families want a second chance.

2021-12-14T20:52:54+00:00

As Indianapolis Public Schools prepares to end its relationship with a charter school struggling with academics, staffing and enrollment, families say they want the school to get another chance.

The school district announced earlier this month that it would recommend ending a contract with Ignite Achievement Academy to operate Elder W. Diggs School 42.

IPS officials have said they don’t intend to close the school. But if board members vote Thursday to end the contract, IPS will either need to find a new operator or run the school itself.

As the main reasons for cutting ties with the K-6 school, the district listed math and English proficiency of just 4%, enrollment that has fallen by about 30%, and staff retention rates 20% below the lowest IPS-run school.

But at a community meeting of about 70 people last week, school officials rejected the district’s evaluation and pointed to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on students and staff. Parents, too, defended the 400-student elementary school, while acknowledging that it had work to do.

“I want them to be able to continue on, and whatever changes and growth need to be made, I want them to be given the opportunity and the resources to do so,” said Lena Dickerson, the mother of three Ignite students. “If I had to choose, I’d continue to choose them over any other school, as I’ve been doing.”

Parents want more engagement

Dickerson said the school should be given more time to address the effects of the pandemic on its students, many of whom come from impoverished backgrounds and were hit especially hard by COVID-19.

To accomplish this, the school’s leadership needed to improve communication with families, Dickerson said. But she also partly blamed IPS for Ignite’s shortcomings, saying the district hasn’t supported the school.

The nonrenewal announcement from IPS caught families by surprise, leaving some with the mistaken impression that the school was shutting down entirely, Dickerson said.

Now, it’s not clear if parents have any recourse to fight the recommendation or if the decision is final, she said.

“Us as parents, how much weight does our voice hold?” Dickerson said. “The board should be coming to us, asking what do we recommend and what do we want to do.”

Ignite took over the school to raise low achievement, and is in its final year of a five-year contract with the district.

Families knew this year counted the most, said parent Shawanda Tyson, who praised the school’s unique programs, like an Afrocentric curriculum and focus on financial literacy.

“I love the model,” said Tyson, a longtime supporter. “But when I see those numbers, I’m afraid we put our kids in the same type of situation they were in before.”

Tyson said she noticed parent engagement dropped off after co-founder Brooke Beavers departed in mid-2018. When campuses were closed during the pandemic, Tyson said the school, like many others, struggled to communicate with Spanish-speaking families.

She said she hopes IPS will give the school a chance to improve; but if Ignite does lose its contract, Tyson said Indianapolis Public Schools should take over and run the school itself, rather than bring in another charter operator.

“We could become attached again and then have to be reattached if that charter can’t meet that goal either,” Tyson said. “For the last 10 years we’ve been getting disappointment after disappointment. I would like to have consistency.”

Co-founder and Head of School Shy-Quon Ely acknowledged that COVID-19 weakened the school’s connection to its families. One victim of the pandemic was its signature community engagement event — known as the Ubuntu Council — which frequently packed the school gym.

Ely said the school intended to resume the meetings when safe to do so.

“We’re looking forward to getting back to that because it really does make a difference in our momentum,” he said.

He declined to comment on an ideal outcome of IPS’ recommendations, citing the Ignite board’s decision to pursue legal remedies.

Addressing the city’s and district’s concerns

Ely said Ignite planned to improve academics by continuing on with its strategies, with the hope that the pandemic would ease and allow students to remain in school. Earlier this year, the school had to stop in-person classes for three grade levels due to an outbreak, he said.

The school’s proficiency rates on the state’s ILEARN tests for English dropped from 6% in 2019 to 4% last spring — the fourth lowest among IPS schools. Math proficiency also was 4%. (The state did not conduct testing in 2020, and administered a different test before 2019.)

But school officials have pointed out that third-grade reading scores improved by about 10 points from 2019 to 2021, from 46% to 56% of students passing the test.

IPS also cited the school’s enrollment, which has declined to less than 400 students this year, according to state data. About 80% of Ignite students are Black, 10% are Hispanic, and 6% are multiracial.

In a speech to parents and staff Thursday, Ely cited the pandemic for dropping enrollment, as families left the area.

Ely and Ignite board Chair Angela Dabney said the school had no forewarning before December that it was in jeopardy. The district and the school’s charter authorizer, the Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation disagree.

The mayor’s charter school office said it had raised concerns about the school’s academics, operations, and governance in mid-2019, and issued a formal Notice of Deficiency based on academic results in August 2019.

A statement from the school said it corrected those deficiencies and passed a follow-up review.

But the mayor’s office said the issues continued. While the school showed some improvement in its third and fourth years, reviews last spring and summer showed it was still below expectations, the statement said.

The office said it informed school leadership on Oct. 6 that the school was not on track for charter renewal and on Dec. 2 that its seven-year charter was in danger of revocation.

This month the office placed the school’s charter on probation — a separate issue from the renewal process with IPS.

The school said it believed that receiving positive feedback from the mayor’s office in the past two years and the extenuating circumstances of the pandemic would be taken into consideration for a renewal.

Ignite is among more than two dozen innovation schools in the IPS network, some of which have already secured their renewal.

Jaime VanDeWalle, the district’s chief portfolio officer, said the district uses several data points to make renewal recommendations for its innovation network schools. Those include state test scores, staff retention rates, and finance and governance reports, as well as a site visit conducted in the fall of a school’s final contract year.

The district has not seen continuous growth at Ignite, VanDeWalle said. In addition to its low test scores, she said the school had not implemented a high-quality curriculum to improve performance.

The evaluation is also not made in isolation, VanDeWalle said. The district compares it with other similar schools’ metrics to account for factors like the COVID pandemic, which created challenges for all IPS schools.

“When you do that for Ignite, the lack of gains or small gains were not where they needed to be,” VanDeWalle said.

“We acknowledge there are some improvements, some bright spots, but overall, the outcomes are below what we believe every student at the district deserves.”

In response to criticism that the district hadn’t supported the school to make improvements, VanDeWalle said an innovation agreement guarantees operational and academic autonomy to the charter school. While the district did offer support, she said, it can’t order a school to accept it, as it can with a district-run school.

If the IPS board confirms the district’s recommendation on Thursday, Ignite would finish out the school year and the district would announce further plans in January.

Kasha Hayden, an instructional coach who has taught at Ignite since its first year, said Ignite students have made academic progress that isn’t easily measured on state standardized tests.

Students who come to the school in second grade not knowing their numerals leave doing addition and subtraction — which may lag behind standards, but still represents individual growth, Hayden said.

And while Hayden acknowledged that the staff turnover rate is high — with retention dropping from 89% in 2019-20 to 40% in 2020-21 — she characterized it as a function of finding the right people for the young school.

“I know firsthand from being in this building every single day that no matter what we’re going through, through a pandemic and after, that we work hard for our students and our students are definitely growing,” Hayden said.

“To change the operator again — it would be devastating to this community.”

IPS may share $5 million in referendum funds with innovation schools

2021-11-09T23:30:00+00:00

Responding to urging from families and other advocates, Indianapolis Public Schools is proposing to share $5 million per year from a recent tax measure with its charter school partners.

IPS would give $500 for each of its students attending independently run charter schools under its umbrella. The district has about 10,000 students attending 25 charter-operated partner schools, known as innovation schools.

That’s half the per-student benefit that district-run schools receive from the referendum, IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said. She added that IPS would “strongly encourage” the innovation schools to use the funding to increase teacher pay.

“We think that this will demonstrate a responsiveness to the stakeholders that we’ve heard from and ensure greater access to dollars to address compensation,” Johnson said.

District administrators are presenting the plan to IPS board members for discussion Tuesday night.

Splitting referendum funds with charter schools is unprecedented in Indiana, where advocates have pointed to funding gaps caused by charter schools not receiving local tax revenues.

Expected to generate $220 million over eight years, IPS’ 2018 operating referendum has stirred tension among the district’s unconventional “family of schools.” The funding boost allowed the district to substantially raise stagnant teacher salaries — but the extra dollars have only gone to district-run schools, and the charter schools that have taken over struggling schools and contributed to the growth of IPS in recent years haven’t reaped the windfall.

That has created an uneven playing field for teachers’ salaries, leaving charter schools — whose teachers are not part of IPS’ union — to struggle to compete on pay. This year, the referendum generated $36 million, which went toward teacher salaries, district officials said.

Sharing some of the referendum funding will tack another $5 million onto the district’s long-term budget deficit, and IPS will have to look for additional cuts or additional revenues to afford the move.

Brandon Brown, CEO of The Mind Trust, a local nonprofit that has supported IPS’ innovation schools, praised the deal as “a really good compromise” that takes into account both the needs of students and the district’s financial situation.

“This is a really tangible commitment concerning funding equity for children across the district,” Brown said.

Because Indiana charter schools don’t receive local property tax funding, Johnson said the district didn’t include charter partners in calculations when it made the referendum request. Still, some say they believed the measure’s intent was to include the innovation schools, which now account for about a third of the district’s enrollment.

Johnson points out that many charter innovation schools still benefit from services paid for through local funding: 16 are located in IPS buildings, and 13 receive IPS transportation at no cost.

Since 2015, IPS has partnered with both new and existing charter schools in a strategy that marked a significant political shift. The beleaguered district in a choice-rich environment began looking to charter schools as allies rather than competitors, joining forces with schools that once posed a threat to IPS’ sustainability.

Recently, state lawmakers have pressed on the issue of sharing referendum funds with charter schools, and Johnson said she believes the district’s plan will “proactively address” those concerns.

“This is an opportunity for us to demonstrate our flexibility, our collaborative spirit,” Johnson said, “and demonstrate to our legislators that flexibility for traditional public school districts is really important.”

Families from Stand for Children Indiana have been speaking at IPS board meetings throughout the year to ask the district to share the referendum funds as part of their larger call to address racial gaps.

“We have to include every school, because it is all IPS taxpayers who made these funds possible,” IPS parent Dontia Dyson told the board last month. “If we want to be an inclusive and equitable district, we have to make sure we use these funds to lift all schools, not just some. And most importantly, these are all IPS kids, no matter what school types they attend.”

What IPS parents need to know about remote learning options

2021-07-28T23:46:52+00:00

Are you an IPS parent who has signed your child up for virtual school? Are you thinking about signing your child up? What are you concerned about? We want to hear from you. Write awashington@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Schools students who want to learn remotely this school year will need to give up their in-person IPS seat and register at one of two virtual charter schools.

The two online charter schools are Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy and Paramount Online Academy. Phalen is open to students in grades K-12 and Paramount is open to students in grades K-8. While IPS and Paramount start on Monday, Aug. 2, Phalen will start Thursday, Aug. 12.

In May, IPS board members approved two virtual charter school partnerships that would move remote IPS students out of their home school and into a virtual charter for the school year. The partnerships have joined the district as innovation schools, which means they are operated independently with oversight and additional funding from IPS.

Schools across the country have grappled with whether to provide a remote option to students and how to do it. IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said in May that it was “incredibly challenging and not sustainable long term” for district teachers to instruct virtual and in-person students at the same time.

“We need to make sure we have an option that does not put that lift on our individual classroom teachers but could still respond to our families who want that virtual option in the future,” Johnson said.

Here’s what we know so far about IPS virtual school options:

What students are eligible to apply?

Both Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy and Paramount Online Academy are open to students from anywhere in Indiana.

Enroll for virtual school at Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy here. Enroll for virtual school at Paramount Online Academy here.

When is the deadline for applying?

There is no deadline to sign up for either Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy or Paramount Online Academy. Students can apply to transfer at any time.

Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy will offer learning coach and parent orientations the week of Aug. 6-11. Tora Townsend is the founding school leader at the one-year-old PLA virtual school. Paramount will have a back-to-school information session on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. Brandalyn Hayes is the school director for the new Paramount Online Academy.

How many seats are available?

Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy has 2,000 seats for students in kindergarten through eighth grade and 500 seats for high school students. As of July, three-quarters of its 211 statewide students come from IPS, according to Earl Martin Phalen, the chief executive officer of Phalen Leadership Academies.

Paramount Online Academy has space for a total of 558 elementary and middle school students. As of mid-July, nearly 60 IPS students have signed up for this virtual school option. About 100 other students come from various districts and charter school networks.

What does remote learning at these schools look like?

Students will have live instruction daily with teachers at both schools with cameras and mics on. Both school partners are promising small class ratios, typically 25 students to one teacher.

Are digital devices provided?

Yes, Chromebooks or tablets will be provided.

How good are these schools academically compared to the school district?

At Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy, 22.5% of students passed both English and math ILEARN tests, compared to just 10% of IPS third through eighth-graders. This school year will be the first for Paramount Online Academy, but for the three in-person schools operated by Paramount Schools of Excellence — Englewood, Brookside, and Cottage Home — students passing rates for math and English exceed those of IPS. Two of the schools have higher passing rates than the statewide average. At Brookside, 36.7% of students passed both tests, while at Cottage Home, 32.4% passed both.

Tommy Reddicks, the chief executive officer for Paramount Schools of Excellence, said Paramount has a tutoring program and will offer monthly parent training seminars. Online students can participate in extracurricular activities on campuses as well as sports and field trips, according to the IPS website.

Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy will have small-group rotations across virtual classrooms and will use a learning program called Edgenuity to help students master academic concepts at their own comfortable speed. Students will receive small-group tutoring where three to five students will work on the same skill, practice the skill throughout the week, and then get assessed on it on Friday, according to Phalen.

“If they master it, then they go on to a new skill,” Phalen said. “If they haven’t mastered it, we continue to teach that.”

Phalen students will still be able to participate in their home school sports teams and clubs, if they choose to.

Both schools will have a family call center open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for support with online learning and technology.

Can families switch from remote learning to in-person learning later on?

Yes, families can switch from remote learning to in-person learning, but only if the neighborhood or choice school has enough room for them to enroll.

According to the IPS website, if a family wants to return to in-person learning, they must re-enroll at the neighborhood school or through Enroll Indy.

Vaccinated staff and students can go mask free when school starts, Indianapolis district says

2021-07-21T22:00:14+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools students and staff who are vaccinated do not have to wear masks in classrooms when school starts, according to new district guidance.

Unvaccinated students will be required to wear masks at school, and the district recommends that staff continue to wear masks around unvaccinated students, especially children under 12 who are currently not eligible for the vaccine. Students are still expected to practice 3 feet of social distancing whenever possible in classrooms, cafeterias, and on buses.

District officials said in a letter to employees that while they are not requiring all employees to be vaccinated, they must prove they are vaccinated to go without masks.

IPS’ COVID guidance comes as state health authorities and school districts nationwide release their own plans for safely bringing students back to school in person a year and a half after the onset of the pandemic. Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease and Prevention recommended that young students continue to wear masks, while the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that everyone over the age of 2 continue to wear them in school to create more layers of protection.

Vaccinated students and staff who don’t want to wear a mask can voluntarily submit proof of their vaccination status.

As of today, nearly 3 million individuals are fully vaccinated in Indiana. According to The New York Times, 54.6% of adults 18 and older are fully vaccinated in Indiana, compared to 59.6% of adults in the nation. In Marion County, 410,734 individuals are fully vaccinated, according to the state. Only 2.7% of 12- to 15-year-olds in Indiana are fully vaccinated.

Indianapolis Public Schools officials said they will be still tracking COVID-19 cases in schools on their website and will let families and staff know about any exposures on their campuses. Students who have to quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure will be expected to complete schoolwork electronically on a learning platform called Schoology while away from the school building.

While vaccinated students don’t have to wear masks inside classrooms, everyone will have to wear masks on IPS buses because of a federal Transportation Security Administration order.

But during outdoor physical education classes and recess, students and staff can go mask-free, vaccinated or not, as long as they are maintaining social distance.

Athletes are also not required to wear masks during practices and games. Students in band, orchestra and choir can practice and perform, but they cannot rehearse for more than 45 minutes and must be socially distanced.

Some parents, such as Center for Inquiry 70 Parent Karen McAleavey, aren’t too happy about the school district’s guidance.

McAleavey was extremely disappointed that officials weren’t implementing universal masking for everyone, regardless of vaccination status. Her eighth grader is vaccinated, but her sixth grader, who attends the same school, is not eligible to be vaccinated because she is underage. She has kept her children learning remotely throughout the pandemic because she’s worried about her family’s safety.

“For IPS to come out the day after the American Academy of Pediatrics released that guidance, and to have chosen something that’s in contradiction to that guidance, to me just feels shortsighted and it feels like they’re not following the science,” McAleavey said. “It makes me nervous to send my unvaccinated child back to school in the fall.”

She’s also concerned that teachers won’t be able to determine and manage students with various vaccination statuses.

Even though her son, 13-year-old Max McAleavey is vaccinated, he is nervous about starting the school year in person for the first time since March 2020.

“It’s nerve-wracking,” Max said. “It’s kind of scary to think about because I can still get it as a vaccinated individual. I hate to pass it on to my family. COVID is still very much real.”

The school district is still operating vaccination clinics for students 12 and older.

School for IPS students starts on August 2.

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Mind Trust fellows plan to open 2 new Indianapolis charter schools in 2022

2021-06-23T20:38:52+00:00

An academy infused with Latino culture and a school focused on closing learning gaps plan to open in Indianapolis in 2022, joining the city’s expansive roster of charter schools.

Monarca Academy, for grades six through 12, and Liberty Grove Schools, for kindergarten through eighth grade, won approval from the Indianapolis Charter School Board on Tuesday. The mayor’s office will oversee both schools.

Monarca hopes to start with up to 300 middle schoolers, and annually add high school programming. Liberty Grove hopes to enroll up to 500 K-8 students. Neither school has secured a facility, but Monarca plans to open in northwest Indianapolis and Liberty Grove is targeting the west side.

Charter School Board members grilled the applicants on their educational models and financial plans in a three-hour virtual meeting before voting unanimously to grant each school a seven-year charter.

“The pressure’s on,” board member Rubin Pusha told applicants after they gained approval. “You’ve got to be ready to deliver.”

The executive directors of both Monarca and Liberty Grove are innovation school fellows of The Mind Trust, an influential nonprofit that has shaped Indianapolis’ charter school scene. The fellowship pays up to $100,000 a year for two years and provides training to help fellows plan a sustainable model for an innovation school.

The new charters will apply to join Indianapolis Public Schools’ innovation network, hoping to either take over an existing IPS school or open a new facility supported by the district. Approval would ease the charters’ financial burden, allowing them to lean on IPS’ existing facilities, one-to-one technology, and student body instead of starting from scratch.

If not accepted, both executive directors said they would pursue other options, such as leasing a building or sharing a facility with another school or organization.

Throughout the meeting, board members pressed the applicants for specifics on how they plan to recruit diverse teachers, which both schools’ applications noted as a priority, in a state facing a teacher shortage. They also asked if the schools can’t join the IPS innovation network, how they plan to attract enough students to be viable. In addition to traditional public schools, Indianapolis already has about 65 charter schools.

While open to everyone, Monarca Academy is specifically tailored for students who are Latino, English language learners, or immigrants. The school model will focus on addressing learning disparities for Latino and Black students and preparing students for college.

Students will learn Spanish and Latin American performing arts like salsa dancing and capoeira, a Brazilian martial art that mixes gymnastics, dancing, and music. Monarca Academy will expect every student to take an AP Spanish exam.

“I could see the next Lin Manuel Miranda coming out of this,” said Monarca Executive Director Francisco Valdiosera, an educator for more than 20 years who has worked at multiple IPS schools.

Monarca’s cultural approach enthused board members, but they warned Valdiosera not to alienate non-Latino families in the school’s recruitment process and curriculum.

“The community where you’re going to be is more than just Hispanic and Black,” said board member Marco Dominguez.

Liberty Grove Executive Director Morrise Harbour said he wants his charter to provide quality education in an area of Indianapolis that needs more options. In Eagledale, the west-side area south of 38th Street and west of Lafayette Road where Harbour plans to establish his charter, only about one-fifth of middle schoolers attend a school in their neighborhood, according to Liberty Grove’s application.

“It’s a void, and we want to start filling that void respectfully,” said Harbour, who recently moved to Indiana after working at a charter school network in Washington, D.C.

Liberty Grove will focus on addressing learning disparities, helping students catch up in areas where they’re behind while still providing grade-level instruction. The charter’s application described its desired culture as “warm but firm,” and Harbour said the school will push students academically while supporting them emotionally.

“You may have a student that’s significantly behind, but celebrating that student goes a long way,” he said.

How one new Indianapolis group wants to turn parents into education advocates

2021-06-09T19:53:33+00:00

Iris Blanco remembers how frustrating it was to try to enroll her children in school when she first moved to Indianapolis. Now she wants to help other parents.

“Just even simple things like that, for a lot of people, that’s hard,” Blanco said.

She’s one of eight Black and Latina parent leaders with a newly created group called EmpowerED Families, which hopes to equip families with the knowledge and tools to ensure that their children have the best education possible.

The EmpowerED Families team aims to give people of color in the most underserved Indianapolis Public Schools neighborhoods a voice in their children’s schools — from helping parents understand how to work with teachers when problems come up, to rallying for more funding for their schools.

“Parents have a say in what we’re doing,” said Ontay Johnson, executive director of EmpowerED Families. Instead of having decisions made for communities of color, Johnson wants those families to drive the discussions.

Johnson, 47, emphasized that the organization is led by local Black and Latino parents. Racial equity is a top priority, and the group will advocate for antiracism training for all educators, culturally responsive teaching practices, more teachers of color, and more diversity in the curriculum.

Since last fall, the organization has met with more than 200 Indianapolis families to hear what they need and what their concerns are. With a $522,000 budget for 2021-22, EmpowerED Families plans to hold training sessions on how to advocate for change. The parent advocates, who are paid a stipend, will serve as liaisons for families who don’t speak English or families navigating special education services.

EmpowerED Families also wants to support parents through workshops on life skills, job searching, and budgeting, to help improve their quality of life, said Johnson, who previously was the executive director for 100 Black Men of Indianapolis.

The group plans to contact 5,000 people in the next three years.

Unlike other advocacy organizations such as Stand for Children Indiana and RISE Indy, EmpowerED Families does not plan to contribute to political candidates. But the organization will attend school board meetings and rally at the Statehouse to support policies such as increasing funding for schools that serve mostly Black and Latino children and push for curriculum changes, and will oppose proposals that would hurt children of color.

“We will go to the Statehouse and rally with other families and others that are in this space to fight against whatever that legislation may be,” Johnson said.

The organization was incubated by The Mind Trust, a politically influential local charter-advocacy group. The Mind Trust has provided $836,000 to launch EmpowerED Families and will give another $300,000 for the upcoming year.

Like The Mind Trust, EmpowerED Families supports school choice and families having the option to pick the best school for their children. It plans to work with parents at traditional district and charter schools, including charter-operated or independent schools in IPS’ innovation network.

While EmpowerED Families will be its own nonprofit, its board is led by an executive of The Mind Trust. Johnson said he plans to continue to count The Mind Trust as a community partner.

“The Mind Trust is doing some great work when it comes to education and being innovative,” Johnson said. He cited the community learning sites The Mind Trust launched during the pandemic, which he said were “huge” in that they supported students who needed somewhere to learn when school buildings were shut down.

Sunny Reed, a Pike Township parent, attended an online EmpowerED Families launch event in May because she knows Blanco. Reed thinks the group’s priorities, such as helping parents find a school suitable for their children, could be beneficial. But she does have her concerns. Reed said she has seen some parent-focused groups that want to help low-income families lose interest and not stick around for too long.

“You have to get a buy-in from people who have already been let down or felt abandoned by similar organizations,” said Reed, who has a teenage daughter and two adult children. “I just hope that they keep the families engaged because when everything is new, it’s exciting.”

Teaching while ‘in the closet’ was excruciating. Coming out changed everything.

2021-06-08T14:58:06+00:00

Stage lights illuminated us. I began waving my baton to cue the piano and then, my students began singing “For Good” from the Broadway musical “Wicked.” As the song states, my students changed me “for good.”

Everyone watching saw in me a conductor leading students through a choir concert. My students likely saw a leader who always encouraged them to live as their authentic selves. But at that moment, all I could think about was the truth I withheld from them about my own identity.

Jeff Mayo

When I started teaching, I worked in a small private school and made the conscious choice to lie as I signed my contract. I agreed to “not live a lifestyle contrary to the teachings,” of the school’s faith tradition. That meant actively hiding that I am gay. During the two years I was there, I limited access to who knew about the closet. I had a rough time there — sometimes hearing harsh words about my sexual identity from colleagues, administrators, and students — but I made some incredible connections, too, among the children I taught.

In 2018, I took a job at a public charter school within Indianapolis Public Schools’ Innovation Network and began as the K-8 music teacher. I meticulously read through the contract at the school, Matchbook Learning in Haughville, and breathed a small sigh of relief when I realized that signing didn’t mean lying about who I am. That was me peeking out of the teaching closet.

As I came to know my new colleagues, I stopped trying to act straight. I stopped changing my speaking voice, being quite so aware of my clothing, and monitoring how I moved my hands. I just decided to be myself.

But then, during a music lesson inside my own classroom, some students began taunting their classmates with offensive words, including an extremely derogatory term for gay people. The impact of this word reached further than students had intended; It made me question whether I was truly safe to live as my authentic self.

Around the same time, I had decided to come out formally to my administration, as I asked for guidance about representing myself without creating any unintentional discomfort. At one point, our school’s now-CEO connected me to an Indianapolis school leader who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community.

During my conversation with this school leader, I felt fully seen for the first time in my life. My professional and personal selves were no longer divided, and this educator gave me tips on how to come out naturally to students. Weeks later, I debriefed with my administrators, who gave me express permission to come out to students.

Soon after, I had that opportunity. I’d finally heard “You’re so gay”... “That’s so gay,” and, again, that hateful word for gay people hurled across my classroom one too many times. I pulled aside the two students who were using these words as insults and asked if they knew the meaning of what they were saying.

I compared it to how I, as a white man, will never utter the n-word — even if Black Americans sometimes reappropriate the word among themselves. Even then, it’s not a word we use during the school day. Through that approach, I was able to express to students that the other f-word was a hurtful term for a gay man.

Their response: “Well, nobody in our class is gay!”

And for the first time in my career, I told them: “I am. I am gay. That word is not acceptable.”

I dreaded what could happen next.

But what they said surprised me.“Well, you need to tell everyone that you are gay! They need to know it’s not okay to say these words!” I told them that while I didn’t plan to announce it, they were free to tell their classmates. Without hesitation, they proceeded to tell everyone. Gradually, all my students learned my truth. There were giggles and questions, but soon they were correcting each other when a peer used a homophobic slur.

The wave of acceptance from my administration, my colleagues, and my students was overwhelming. When I stopped hiding my identity, school became more joyful. I began dancing, singing, and laughing in the hallways more frequently than before.

Growing up, I never knew a gay adult, and anytime I encountered a gay person, those around me never had anything positive to say. Over time, students who were discovering their own identity within the LGBTQ+ community confided in me and now allow me to walk alongside them. Humbly, I have realized I am the representation I never had.

I am the representation that too few LGBTQ+ students have. Just 27% of LGBTQ+ youth “feel like they can be themselves in school,” according to a Human Rights Campaign youth survey. To change that reality and in honor of Pride Month, here are some of my favorite resources for fostering LGBTQ+-inclusive school communities:

And here’s a list of service providers, hotlines, and text supports for LGBTQ+ youth who may be struggling.

While I am extremely grateful to have found myself in such an accepting school community, I know that is not the case for all educators, school staff, and students. Which is why my mission within education is to ensure every child knows that they matter, are valued, are important, and that who they are will always be enough.

Jeff Mayo (he/him/his) is currently an instructional coach and director of eLearning, serving the Haughville, Indianapolis community, with Matchbook Learning at Wendell Phillips School 63.

This Indianapolis principal wants to prepare students for jobs that don’t exist yet

2021-03-16T00:33:30+00:00

When she started her teaching career in Indianapolis Public Schools, Shatoya Ward tried to reach every student who came into her classroom. Some of them she could connect with, and some of them she couldn’t.

She wondered: What happened to the students who struggled? When Ward went to work at an adult high school, geared toward helping those over 18 finish their diplomas, she found her answer.

“They grow up, and they become adults — sometimes with the same issues,” Ward said. “They’re at a different age, but they’re my kids all over again.”

Those students told her about the barriers they faced: They didn’t form relationships with their teachers. They didn’t feel schools understood their cultures and backgrounds. Nobody believed in them, and they didn’t believe in themselves, either.

What stopped many of those students, Ward realized, were gaps in life skills. Some of them, for example, didn’t understand their transcripts or credits despite having some prior high school experience — “that’s data analysis right there,” Ward said. “That’s the start of it. Then you start thinking, what next? If you want to go to college, you start working backward. That is a critical skill component that you wouldn’t believe so many students don’t have.”

When Ward got the chance five years ago to create a new charter high school, Purdue Polytechnic, she wanted to do things differently. If they could teach students to think critically, find resources, and manage their time, would it change their course as adults?

Ward recently spoke with Chalkbeat about preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet and supporting staff members through the pandemic.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

At Purdue Polytechnic High School, Principal Shatoya Ward wants students to learn life skills such as problem-solving and logical reasoning.

Has there been anything in your career up to this point that prepared you for this school year?

At the start, we have been set on reinventing high school. Working previously in adult education at the Excel Center and being a part of redefining what secondary education looks like for adults positioned me to expand my perspective on the needs of high school students. The last few years, we have worked to set up our students for jobs that do not exist yet in a future society. People always ask, how do you do that? We do it by engaging students in authentic, relevant experiences that provide opportunities to coach and provide feedback on skills that are transferable in college, careers, and life. We have 20 competencies that we coach our students on — skills such as problem-solving, logical reasoning, historical thinking, and data analysis.

If you prepare students to be agile, if you prepare them for critical thinking, they’re going to see issues or complex problems that they want to solve. They’re going to invent things. We want them to be able to express themselves and get themselves in the position to reach their goals.

How are you helping to guide your staff through this unprecedented time?

This year we have made the biggest investment in technology needs, mental health, and tokens of appreciation. We sent care packages and did online trivia with prizes. We sponsored lunch through DoorDash gift certificates, and we did lunch-and-learns to talk through some of the lessons and strategies that worked for us in virtual learning. We made sure that we took the extra effort and created a culture of belonging and community to support each other.

What does a typical day look like for you now?

Busy! Before COVID, as an administrator, you were focused on student achievement and staff development. Now you find yourself spending more time on making decisions ensuring the safety of staff and students as the priority.

How are you addressing learning loss following months of remote learning?

We have begun to address learning loss by dedicating resources toward Purdue University student tutors working with our students and setting aside time before, during, and after school for the support. We will also dedicate resources to a summer session of academic support for our students.

After nearly a year of upheaval — and in some cases grief and trauma — there’s been a lot of talk about the importance of social-emotional learning. Are you doing anything differently to account for what so many families have been through?

While monitoring the state data on deaths and positive cases of COVID, we became acutely aware of the toll that loss of lives were taking on the community and our students. It hit home when staff and students lost loved one themselves. Additionally, parents were reaching out to us pleading for help for students who just did not adjust well to isolation due to virtual learning.

We were so fortunate to be able to partner with Damar Services, which provides mental health services for our staff and students coping with trauma and loss. We also made it a priority to set aside time to engage in activities that students and staff enjoy together to foster community and belonging, like through clubs or e-sports. It lightens up the mood.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

If I didn’t have people in my life who believed in me enough to guide me toward opportunities and helped me access them, I would have gone a different path that may have led to a darker future. I hope to be the light in students’ futures, especially to underrepresented minorities. The more our underrepresented students interact with STEM-focused professionals, the more they understand the importance of our school’s mission, and the more I am driven toward my mission.

What’s one thing you’ve read that has made you a better educator?

I would like to highlight “Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement” by Zaretta Hammond. This book helped me to see what it takes and provided practical strategies to make learning accessible and relevant to our students, especially our underrepresented minorities.

What’s the best advice you ever received — and how have you put it into action?

The best advice I have ever received is: “You do not have to know all the answers; just surround yourself with people who provide you with access to the answers.” I am so fortunate to work with resilient, passionate, driven, and brilliant people. We go hard for our students and community.

IPS officials consider one-year extension for innovation schools

2020-11-19T18:00:19+00:00

Without data to paint a picture of academic success or failure, Indianapolis Public Schools will likely delay for a year renewing the contracts of four privately run schools under its supervision.

Instead, the board on Thursday will vote on extending current contracts for four innovation schools, which are academically accountable to the district but are operated by non-profit or charter school partners.

Normally, the board would review the performance of the four schools and consider renewing their contracts to educate IPS students. But IPS administrators lacked data for any reviews.

Because of disruption from campus closures and remote learning — measures taken to combat the spread of the COVID virus — the district suspended visits to review schools, and schools did not administer state tests last school year.

In effect, the district may grant the four schools — Global Prep Academy, Kindezi Academy, Cold Spring School, and Phalen Leadership Academy at School 93 — a one-year hold-harmless extension, board President Michael O’Connor said.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, at a meeting Tuesday in preparation for Thursday’s board meeting, said that approving a one-year extension would not be a judgment on the schools. She noted that the district is also not reviewing the performance of traditional schools, either, “in the midst of massive disruption and change that’s happening across every single school.”

If the board were not to act on the contracts, the four schools could qualify for an automatic five-year renewal when their contracts expire in June. The district staff has recommended extending current contracts in order to review next year’s state data on student growth, graduation rates, staff retention, leadership stability, financial reporting, and discipline trends.

Kevin Kubacki, executive director for the Neighborhood Charter Network, which manages Kindezi Academy, praised the recommendation for an extension. The school served about 425 students in grades K-6, according to a district report.

Had the district tried to conduct its normal reviews, “They would have brought their team in either August or September and done all that, which would have been chaos, given the state of the country and the world right now,” he said.

Kubacki said a delay allows people to make informed decisions about a school’s progress.

“It gives us a higher likelihood of having meaningful data to make decisions,” he said.

The district administration has recommended no changes to any terms of the contracts.

Correction: Nov. 18, 2020: This story has been updated to remove incorrect information about a change to an innovation school contract.

IPS charter supporters outspend and repel opponents

2020-11-13T00:22:43+00:00

Four years ago, education advocate Elizabeth Gore won a surprise victory in the Indianapolis Public Schools board race, defeating two people, including a far better-financed incumbent backed by supporters of school choice.

In the next election, two other challengers who were skeptical of partnerships with charter schools seized board seats, raising the profile of their viewpoints.

But last week’s election dashed critics’ hopes to claim control of the seven-member school board.

Gore and three other candidates supported by the teachers union lost, solidifying board support for dramatic changes in the district, including controversial partnerships with charter schools.

As the dust settles on the contentious battle for control of the district, there is deep disagreement about what to make of the results. Supporters of the four winners say the victories show that voters are happy with the direction of the district. Those who lost the race, however, say that the election came down to money, where they had a significant disadvantage.

The starkest funding gap was in the at-large race where Gore lost to newcomer Kenneth Allen. A Gary native and father of school-age children, Allen raised over $174,000 — the most money for an IPS board seat in recent memory. About 90% came from political action committees that are friendly to school choice.

Even though Gore — who raised about $22,000 primarily from the state teachers union PAC — has seen school board campaigns escalate spending in recent years, the flood of money into the IPS race stunned her.

“I’m speechless,” said Gore, who lost the race by about 2 percentage points. Gore believes that candidates who are skeptical of the direction of the district are so vastly outspent they have little chance of claiming seats.

“When you add it all up,” Gore said, “the power of money at this point is the thing that seems to be working.”

Allen declined an interview request from Chalkbeat, saying that he needed to focus on work and family after the campaign.

About 37% of IPS students now attend innovation schools, which are managed by outside charter or nonprofit operators. Those schools are controversial in part because teachers are not represented by the union and they are not directly controlled by the administration.

Some who backed the winners downplay the role of money. Justin Ohlemiller, executive director of Stand for Children Indiana which runs a PAC that spent at least $140,000 on the race according to the candidate reports, instead credited voters who learned about the issues and then supported the changes in the district.

It takes money to pay for outreach, such as mailers and text messages to voters telling them about candidates. In a race where many voters are not familiar with the candidates or issues, Ohlemiller argues that it is crucial to inform them.

“I don’t buy into the premises that spending has anything to do with the outcome,” Ohlemiller said. “End of the day, voters make decisions. ... That decision should be honored.”

Sashah Robertson, an IPS parent who was on the Stand committee that chose candidates to endorse, didn’t realize how much money was spent on the election. But she dismissed the idea that the seats were bought.

The group worked hard to research and pick candidates to endorse and to tell thousands of parents about their choices, Robertson said. “I just want the best for our kids.”

Incumbent Diane Arnold, who defeated a challenger to win reelection in District 4, said that it takes more than money to win a board seat. During the campaign, she made 500 phone calls and walked over 20 miles going door to door to meet voters and hand out flyers.

Arnold pointed to prior candidates who won despite funding deficits. But she was also surprised at the surge in fundraising this election, and she raised concerns about the “optics” of spending so much on the election.

“I think they probably need to reevaluate what they’re doing and see if it’s too much,” said Arnold, referring RISE Indy, a newly formed PAC funded by national school choice advocates that endorsed Arnold and the other winning candidates.

RISE Indy did not respond to interview requests.

Over the last eight years, the battle for control of IPS has become contentious and politicized, with candidates backed by allies of charter schools facing off against candidates backed by the teachers union.

The ideological split did not dominate either side’s campaign, and campaign literature largely didn’t mention charter schools. Many voters may not have been aware of the ideological debate or what is going on in IPS schools. Others likely voted based on factors like who they trust or who friends recommend.

Shanta Williams chose a candidate who was supported by the union and one backed by charter-friendly PACs. The mother of a high schooler, Williams moved to the district four months ago. When it came time to cast her ballot for school board members, she voted for incumbents — Diane Arnold and Elizabeth Gore — because she heard IPS was getting better.

“I don’t think your common people know anything about innovation schools,” Arnold said.

The vigorous campaigns for board seats help spread information among voters and give them access to information, Arnold said. People “at least have the opportunity to be more informed than in the other surrounding districts.”

Incumbent Venita Moore, who was backed by RISE and Stand, won re-election with 79% of the vote, the most decisive margin in the race. Another RISE-supported candidate, newcomer Will Pritchard, handily won the District 1 seat on the east side.

Moore believes that voters supported her because they see her as independent and sincere, she said. But she also argued that the success of the four candidates who support the current direction of the district shows that “more people are benefiting from the decisions that we’re making than are not.”

All four defeated candidates were backed by the IPS Community Coalition, a group that’s consistently critical of the current administration. Coalition leader Jim Sheurich blamed the loss on outside money that poured in.

In 2018, two coalition-backed candidates won their uphill battle because many voters were angry that the district had recently closed several high schools, Scheurich said.

If IPS closes more schools, as is widely anticipated, “we will be back in the same situation because that’s going to upset a ton of people,” he said.

Christina Smith, who helped found the coalition and ran against Arnold to represent District 4, said supporters of partnerships with charter schools invested heavily in this race because they lost two seats in 2018.

“They realized that if they didn’t step up their game, that they would lose again,” said Smith, an activist and parent. Smith, who lost by about 4 points, said she was encouraged that two races were close despite the fact she and her allies raised significantly less than their opponents.

While the coalition’s candidates were defeated, the fight for control of the district is not over, Smith said.

That’s one thing she and Arnold agree on.

Charter allies sweep IPS school board election to win four seats

2020-11-06T14:35:11+00:00

Candidates favoring charters and school choice claimed a sweeping victory in the Indianapolis Public Schools election, winning all four seats on the ballot when county officials largely finished tallying votes Thursday.

In the at-large race, Kenneth Allen eked out a victory over incumbent Elizabeth Gore with 40% of the vote. Gore garnered 38% of the vote, with the remainder going to Kendra McKnight (17%) and Ellis Noto (5%).

In another close contest, incumbent Diane Arnold held on to her seat with 52% of the vote, beating challenger Christina Smith. Arnold represents District 4, the west and south side of the school system.

Marion County took more than two days to count the results because of the large numbers of mail-in and early ballots. As a result, the winner of those close contests didn’t emerge until late Thursday, when fewer than 100 votes remained to be counted.

Two other candidates easily sailed to victory. Incumbent Venita Moore reclaimed a seat representing District 2, on the north east side of the district, with 79% of the vote. Newcomer Will Pritchard won 63% of the vote to represent District 1, the east side.

The four winners will join a seven-member board that sets the priorities and direction of the 31,000-student district. The board faces a host of challenges, including how to cut the district’s spending, how to fulfill its commitment to racial equity, and how to stem the learning loss wrought by school closures during the pandemic.

The victories in the hard-fought campaigns all but ensure that the district will expand partnerships with charter schools. The strategy has won it attention from national observers and advocates for “portfolio” districts, where the central office runs its own schools and also oversees the quality of independently managed schools.

Charter-friendly political action committees invested heavily in the IPS board election, and the four winning candidates raised over $390,000 combined — nearly 10 times as much as their opponents did.

Election 2020: Control of the IPS school board up in the air with two close races

2020-11-04T05:20:32+00:00

Supporters of Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Aleesia Johnson’s administration appear poised to hold on to at least two seats in the race for control of the school board. But with many votes uncounted, the outcome of two other races remain undetermined.

Marion County Clerk’s Office was counting ballots until nearly midnight Tuesday.

Ten candidates were competing in races for four seats — a majority of the seven-member board.

The winners will help set the direction of the 31,000-student district by overseeing the superintendent, setting priorities, and signing off on the budget. The vigorous campaign pitted well-financed supporters of the current IPS administration against opponents who are critical of the district’s collaboration with charter schools.

Incumbent Venita Moore, who was backed by groups that support charter partnerships, was winning nearly 80% of the vote late Tuesday. Moore’s District 2 seat covers the north east slice of the district. Challenger Daqavise Winston, who formerly worked in discipline in IPS, trailed with 20%.

In District 1, IPS parent Will Pritchard led with about 65% of the votes. A political newcomer, Pritchard was supported by choice-friendly groups. His opponent, teachers union-backed candidate Brandon Randall, a program director for a youth services nonprofit. The east side district was previously represented by Michael O’Connor, who favored partnerships with charter schools and did not run for reelection.

The two other races remained extremely close late Tuesday. At-large candidate Kenneth Allen, a newcomer with the backing of several choice-friendly political action committees, was just one percentage point ahead of incumbent Elizabeth Gore, who was supported by the teachers union. Each of them had about 40% of the vote, while Kendra McKnight and Ellis Noto trailed significantly behind.

In one of the hardest-fought races in the election, incumbent board member Diane Arnold held a slim lead over activist and IPS parent Chrissy Smith. Arnold represents District 4, which includes the west and south side of the district.

Candidates for school board often can win by small margins. The seats represent relatively small regions, and many voters do not cast a ballot — in part because they may not know about the race or the candidates in the non-partisan contest. In 2018, nearly 32,000 IPS residents who cast ballots did not vote for an at-large candidate for school board. Susan Collins won the seat by about 700 votes.

Outside the polling place at Irvington Community School on Election Day, Jeremy Stephens said that he supported Pritchard for the District 1 seat because he seemed like a trustworthy family man. But Stephens, who has two children at School 57, chose not to vote in the at-large race because he didn’t feel well-informed about the candidates.

Lejuan and Casey Harris, who voted Tuesday at Brookside Park, supported Venita Moore and Elizabeth Gore. But the couple, who sent their children to IPS, were distrustful of district leaders and frustrated that programs had been cut and schools closed.

“I’m 45 years old, and I went to IPS. There’s been problems with IPS since I went to school. Lack of funding. You know what I mean. Teachers are underpaid,” Lejuan Harris said. “Everybody knows this. And everybody says they are going to change it, and nobody has done it yet.”

Earlier this week at the Indianapolis City-County Building, early voter Brian Gill said he favored Kenneth Allen for the at-large seat. He wants to see better pay for teachers, which he believes will improve education for students.

Gill primarily decided to support Allen because of good word-of-mouth when he asked people he knew about Allen, he said. “That’s why he’s getting my vote.”

IPS teacher Ilana Shinkle, who voted early during fall break, said that she chose Elizabeth Gore because “she supports our neighborhood public schools” rather than partnerships with charter schools, she said.

Allies of the administration vastly outraised their opponents. Candidates friendly to charter schools raised over $390,000 by the election, out of a total of more than $430,000 raised for the campaign.

At-large candidate Allen raised at least $174,000, an enormous sum for a local school board election. Largely bankrolled by pro-charter political action committees, Allen’s campaign deluged voters with flyers, text messages, and advertising.

Incumbent Gore, meanwhile, raised about $12,000. Her largest contribution was an $8,000 donation from the political action committee of the state teachers union.

Political spending is particularly influential in school board races because voters often know little about the candidates or issues. In 2016, however, Gore herself proved it is possible to win a seat on the IPS board without a large war chest. She defeated the incumbent to win a seat after raising about $1,200.

The two other candidates for the at-large seat, Noto and McKnight, did not file campaign finance reports.

Charter backers battle to preserve edge on IPS school board

2020-10-29T00:42:52+00:00

Advocates of school choice and charter schools are fighting to preserve control of the Indianapolis Public Schools board, in a race that has attracted national attention and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations.

Supporters of the current administration are hoping to hold on to a thin majority, while challengers seeking more schools to be directly managed by the district see a chance to wrest control after seven years of charter-friendly policies.

With four seats on the seven-member board up for election, the outcome could easily shift the balance of power in the district.

Nearly 40% of IPS students now attend innovation schools, which are run by outside charter or nonprofit operators. The city has become a model for communities seeking to embrace the “portfolio” approach, where the central office goes from only running its own schools to overseeing the quality of independently managed schools.

Supporters of the district’s model, who believe it has improved school quality and attracted more families, are zealously working to maintain control of the board. Political action committees supporting school choice have spent more than $200,000 on the race.

The race is drawing large contributions from out-of-state donors. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave $100,000 to RISE Indy, a new political action committee backing choice-friendly candidates, and Walmart heir Alice Walton gave $200,000 to the same group.

That funding is helping to inundate voters with mailers, text messages, and social media advertisements in support of incumbents Venita Moore (District 2) and Diane Arnold (District 4), and newcomers Kenneth Allen (at-large) and Will Pritchard (District 1).

Even while advocates for more independently run schools are throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars into the race, they are trying to downplay political motivations.

Jasmin Shaheed-Young, who leads RISE, describes the group as committed to amplifying community voices.

When asked if the group was created because IPS school board members who supported school choice lost seats in the 2018, Shaheed-Young said she created it because she wants to boost awareness of school board races.

“I wanted RISE to be different in the sense of, let’s bring everyone together and let’s center students,” Shaheed-Young said. “Let’s stop talking about the us versus them. Let’s stop talking about governance model.”

The parent-organizing group Stand for Children Indiana, which often lobbies IPS to hand management of low-performing schools to charter operators, has reported spending about $49,000 on the school board election.

Justin Ohlemiller, executive director of Stand, said that the focus on innovation schools is misplaced. The parents they work with are invested in improving failing schools, not in school type, he said.

“They want a great public school, and they want the district to focus on delivering that great public education,” Ohlemiller said. “I think that that debate is driven by, frankly, more elites.”

Supporters believe that under the leadership of Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, the district has also taken steps to improve areas such as teacher retention, salaries, and diversity.

“There’s tremendous capacity right now and a lot of momentum toward positive change,” said Sarah TeKolste, an IPS teacher who helped found Teachers Alliance for Equitable Public Schools, a PAC that endorsed choice-friendly candidates. “And I think there are certain candidates who would not support that direction and who want to pause some of the progress that we’re making.”

Opponents of district-charter partnerships see a rare opportunity to win control of the school board.

Candidates they endorsed won two spots on the IPS board in 2018. Now, advocates are hoping to win at least two more seats to stymie the expansion of innovation schools.

Jim Scheurich, a professor at IUPUI, believes the campaign this year is especially hard fought because supporters of the current administration are worried about losing control of the board.

“I think they were extremely surprised that we took two seats last time around,” said Scheurich, president of the IPS Community Coalition, a political group opposed to innovation schools. “Because they got scared last time, they have really upped their game.”

Four candidates for the IPS board are waging campaigns with backing from the Community Coalition: incumbent Elizabeth Gore (at-large), and newcomers Brandon Randall (District 1), Daqavise Winston (District 2), and Christina Smith (District 4). Although some of them are getting substantial funding from the state teachers union, their war chests are significantly smaller than their opponents’.

After criticism from opponents for failing to register as a PAC, the Community Coalition filed campaign finance disclosures with the county: It reported spending $297. Scheurich said the group has no paid staff and virtually no budget.

“If our message didn’t resonate, no one would be paying attention to us,” he said.

The vocal criticism of school choice in Indianapolis is part of a national trend, said Carol Corbett Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, which opposes charter schools and endorsed candidates in the IPS race. The group didn’t donate to or spend money on the campaigns, but it did share its endorsements with members, Burris said.

“Republican Party support for charter schools is growing. Betsy DeVos is sort of the poster child and I think has actually galvanized resistance to charter schools,” Burris said. “You’re seeing a higher degree of skepticism about charter schools, especially in progressive communities, and especially in the Democratic Party.”

Those messages resonated with several people voting early outside the Indianapolis City-County Building in mid-October.

Summer Daily, a software engineer, and Jon Maci, a college philosophy professor, said they were skeptical of charter and magnet schools, and they planned to vote for Brandon Randall and Elizabeth Gore.

When researching the IPS board before voting, they were looking for candidates who were “interested in supporting public interests and not private interests when it comes to education,” Daily said.

Not even a global pandemic can distract from the debate over whether to partner with charter schools in IPS. But the school system is facing a host of other issues, including ones that are likely to dominate the school board’s agenda.

The focus on school choice is eclipsing more urgent topics, said Pritchard, who is running for a spot on the board and supports innovation schools.

The school district was under financial pressure before the coronavirus, said Pritchard, an IPS parent who is on the district finance committee. Now, the pandemic has made its budget woes even more severe.

The first important job of the board will be tackling those issues, and it’s crucial to have board members who are up to task, Pritchard argued. “Your public outrage over innovation schools is going to mean nothing if you get on the board, and you’re faced with a huge financial gap that requires you to close five schools.”

Correction: Oct. 29, 2020: This story has been updated to clarify that Sarah TeKolste was referring to progress in areas besides the growth of innovation schools.

IPS board candidates debate innovation schools, racial equity, and budget cuts

2020-09-30T22:19:32+00:00

Ten candidates for Indianapolis Public Schools board all emphasized the need to close educational gaps for Black students and improve neighborhood schools, in a Tuesday night debate hosted by Chalkbeat Indiana and WFYI.

Their stances varied on one controversial issue that has divided the district: IPS’ partnerships with charter and nonprofit operators to run what are known as innovation schools. The district most notably uses the strategy to try to turn around low-performing schools.

“Some of those schools are struggling still,” said Elizabeth Gore, who is in a four-way race to keep her at-large seat. “They have not, I feel, met the quota that I would like to see. So at this point, I have a problem with innovative schools. I’d like to see a moratorium on them until we can find out what works and what doesn’t work.”

Four seats on the seven-member board are up for election Nov. 3. Advocacy groups have drawn the usual battle lines between candidates who back innovation schools and those who are skeptical of the strategy. In six years, IPS has grown to include 26 innovation schools among the 72 schools in its portfolio.

Gore’s challengers in the at-large race, which represents the entire district, were split on innovation schools.

“I’m all for parents being able to choose what they think is best for their young people,” said Kenneth Allen, program director of the Indiana Trafficking Victims Assistance Program and chairman of the Indiana Commission on the Social Status of Black Males. He added that he wants more transparency around innovation schools.

“I’m a little on the fence,” said Kendra McKnight, whose children attended an innovation school. While she liked that families have more choices, she said different policies and teaching strategies at her children’s innovation school were sometimes confusing. “The innovative school wasn’t really beneficial to me and my children.”

Ellis Noto, an Army veteran who works for the U.S. Department of Defense, said he liked that innovation schools allow teachers “a little more flexibility.” Teachers at innovation schools aren’t covered by the district’s union contract. But he also raised concerns about vetting the quality of innovation school strategies.

Watch the forum in full here:

A Conversation About Education with IPS Board Candidates
Election season is upon us--with mail in ballots already being cast and early voting beginning on October 6th. Learn about the candidates running for IPS School Board during this online form hosted in partnership by @WFYI and @ChalkbeatIN. The discussion will be hosted in two parts: 5:30 pm - District Candidates, moderated by WFYI’s Eric Weddle District 1: Brandon Randall and Will Pritchard District 2: Daqavise Winston and Venita Moore District 4: Christina Smith and Diane Arnold 6:30 pm- At-Large Candidates, moderated by Chalkbeat’s Dylan Peers McCoy At-large: Kendra McKnight, Elizabeth Gore, Ellis Noto, and Kenneth Allen
Posted by WFYI on Tuesday, September 29, 2020

In the District 4 race to represent the west side and south side, the innovation school issue pits longtime board member Diane Arnold against vocal critic Christina Smith. Arnold has backed innovation school partnerships during her tenure on the school board, while Smith has criticized the district for not involving families and community members enough in forging those partnerships, which she believes take control away from local schools.

“I think that we really need to work on strengthening our neighborhood schools,” Smith said. “If we can get more parents to invest in the community, invest in their neighborhood school, and not only be looking to magnet programs that have limited numbers of seats, we can bring and keep people in the district.”

Smith said word-of-mouth discouraged her from sending her children to their neighborhood school, leading her family to choose magnet options.

Arnold agreed but also defended innovation schools: “So I think it’s obvious innovation schools have been a positive for the district and more students have come back. We have to raise the quality of every school in the district … so that every neighborhood school is as good as every innovation and every choice school.”

Candidates also discussed how a tightening budget could potentially lead to IPS closing schools. In District 2, which covers the far east side, incumbent Venita Moore said the district should work with lawmakers and community partners to make clear where additional funding or support is needed.

“We need to be able to advocate very loudly about where we are and what we’re doing,” Moore said.

Challenger Daqavise Winston, a former IPS behavior specialist, said he didn’t want to see more school closures on the east side.

“I won’t let any schools in District 2 be closed, especially considering the fact that we have one middle school and both of our high schools have been closed here recently,” he said. “It’s unacceptable for us not to have a public high school on the far east side.”

In the race for an open seat in District 1, which represents the near east side and southeast side, candidates addressed racial equity in response to a question about Black IPS students recording lower passing rates on state tests than do other student groups.

“I think we have to do a better job of not relying on standardized testing as a way of evaluating success,” said Brandon Randall, a program director for a youth services nonprofit, pointing to racial biases in test questions. “They’re not equitable, they’re not culturally competent. And so we have to find other measurements, other evaluation methods.”

Will Pritchard, who is on the IPS board’s finance committee and works for a company that specializes in low-income housing tax credits, said the district can better support Black students if it hires more teachers of color. About three-quarters of IPS teachers are white, serving a student population that is 80% nonwhite.

“The second thing is we need to create a support system for kids that come from less stable situations, so we need to build a support team to help them go into the class and get ready to learn and not have all of the responsibility fall on teachers,” Pritchard said.

Read up on the candidates’ positions through our voter guide. Watch a recording of the full debate here.

Indiana blocks some charter schools from $10 million coronavirus relief grant program

2020-08-14T19:43:04+00:00

A $10 million grant program meant to help Indiana schools grapple with the impact of the coronavirus is pitting charter and traditional public schools against each other and creating tension over how to divvy up federal aid.

The state notified several Indiana charter schools last week that they had won competitive grants to help them serve the most vulnerable students. But then the schools learned that restrictions that weren’t mentioned in the initial application would prevent them from accepting the grant.

The Indiana Department of Education is withholding federally funded coronavirus relief grants from schools that also received money through the federal Paycheck Protection Program, according to interviews with and documents shared by school leaders.

Dozens of Indiana charter schools received federal PPP funds — forgivable loans aimed at helping small businesses continue paying employees during the pandemic. Charter schools qualified for the loans because they are run by nonprofits, but traditional public school districts were not eligible.

The loans to charter schools drew outrage from some people because charter schools were still receiving public funding and some have wealthy benefactors. (Chalkbeat is also a nonprofit and received federal paycheck protection funding.)

The two funding streams have different purposes. While schools must spend the PPP money on salaries and facilities in order for the loans to be forgiven, the Indiana Department of Education grants are meant to help schools serve students and could go to other expenses, such as technology. The grants are a small slice of Indiana’s federal CARES Act allocation, which included $215 million for schools.

In a memo to schools in May, the department told schools it would prioritize applications from rural districts with limited resources; hard-hit areas; education-related organizations like juvenile correctional facilities; and schools that serve at-risk students, such as English learners and homeless students.

For Matchbook Learning at School 63, the grant seemed like a natural fit. Nearly 37% of the school’s 600 students are English language learners, and 98% come from low-income families. The school’s west side Indianapolis neighborhood has also been hit hard by the coronavirus, said Eric McGuire, director of personalization. Matchbook planned to use the grant to hire a social worker with experience in therapy to help students deal with trauma, officials said.

But after learning that the school was awarded more than $77,000, Matchbook leaders realized the school wasn’t eligible. To receive the funding, they’d need to formally state that the school had not gotten a PPP loan. Matchbook received a $753,000 PPP loan, according to CEO Amy Swann.

“This grant was specifically intended for schools and communities like ours,” McGuire said. “We’re just so frustrated and upset and devastated for our families and our kids.”

The Indiana Department of Education did not respond to several requests for comment from Chalkbeat.

This is just the latest dispute over school funding during the pandemic. As schools have incurred millions of dollars in extra costs to cope with the coronavirus, the argument over how to distribute federal assistance has put private, charter, and traditional public schools in competition for money.

Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos ignited controversy when her department initially put out guidance that would have directed more federal money than expected to private schools. In Indiana, State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick instructed schools to ignore that guidance in favor of a more straightforward reading of the law that directs more money to public schools.

Schools across the state are also waiting to see whether the Indiana legislature will provide them full funding for students who attend virtually this school year or leave in place a law that only funds virtual students at 85%.

Charter school leaders and advocates say that the Indiana Department of Education’s decision to withhold the coronavirus relief grants from some schools conflicts with McCormick’s public statements about supporting students who are most in need.

“This seems like a political decision, rather than a decision that was based on the merits,” said Brandon Brown, CEO of The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis nonprofit that supports charter schools. “It is surprising that an elected official that has staked her tenure on resisting politics is now doing the very same thing that she spent the last four years criticizing.”

Brown called the exclusion “disgraceful” and said it will harm Black, Latino, and low-income students who attend Indianapolis charter schools.

The decision made Kristie Sweeney, head of school for Southeast Neighborhood School of Excellence, feel like McCormick was “getting back at us because she’s not a charter school supporter,” she said. The policy prioritizes “the students most in need who go to traditional public schools, not students most in need whose parents elect to have choice.”

Sweeney said it was especially frustrating because she had no indication that her school wouldn’t be eligible. The staff spent significant time preparing the application. Last week, the school heard it would receive almost $130,000 to purchase Chromebooks and Wi-Fi hotspots. But now the award won’t materialize because the school received a $742,100 PPP loan, according to Sweeney.

Indiana charter school leaders and advocates point out that charter schools lack access to many sources of education funding, such as property taxes that help pay for facilities and transportation, and ballot referendums to supplement budgets.

Why many Indianapolis charter schools are reopening classrooms despite the coronavirus

2020-08-10T20:19:28+00:00

Eight days before the campus reopened to students, more than a dozen teachers at an east side charter school sat mostly alone in quiet classrooms watching a training video of the school nurse downstairs in her own office, one of several coronavirus safety precautions.

School begins this week for Paramount School of Excellence, albeit with plexiglass dividers, assigned lunch seats, and music classes largely without singing. The network expects more than half its students to show up, a sharp contrast with Indianapolis Public Schools, which will begin the year entirely online.

More than 16,000 students attend charter schools within IPS boundaries, over 35% of public schoolers in the area. Charter schools typically have more flexibility in planning than do district schools because they are often smaller, making it easier to communicate directly with teachers, parents, and students. At the same time, they are not constrained by teachers union contracts or the pressure that unions can exert. And many of them are more responsive to parent wishes.

The Indianapolis education system allows parents to choose schools and gives school leaders the freedom to pick curriculum, hire teachers, and direct spending. Now, with limited and delayed oversight from state and county officials, the same philosophy is pushing local education leaders to respond to the pandemic in myriad ways.

“From the outset of this, what we wanted to do is put control in the parents’ hands and say, ‘Hey, this is your choice. Do you want to come back?’ “ said Tommy Reddicks, CEO of the three-school Paramount network. In the absence of a consistent, countywide approach, he said, “we felt like we were in a really good position to do the very best we could to safeguard those students whose parents wanted them in school.”

The Indianapolis mayor’s office, which authorizes the majority of the charter schools in the city, said that about half the 43 schools it oversees will offer some form of in-person instruction.

Whether and how to open schools are not easy decisions for anyone — teachers, parents, and school leaders. There’s no absolute right answer, said Brandon Brown, who leads The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis nonprofit that supports charter schools, and “whatever answer you do end up choosing is going to have negative consequences.”

Tucked on the west side of downtown, School 63 is a publicly funded, privately managed neighborhood school. Operator Matchbook Learning expects about 80% of students at the school to return in person, CEO Amy Swann said.

School 63 has created a hybrid middle school schedule, required masks for all students and staff, and moved some classes outside. But returning in person will be especially tough because it is an innovation school, managed under a contract with IPS that includes busing. With the district operating virtually and not running buses, most families will need to provide their own transportation.

While many school districts have faced pressure from teachers and teachers unions to reopen virtually, charter schools may be less likely to see that pushback since their teachers are not typically unionized. At School 63, one teacher who had come out of retirement was particularly concerned about the health risks of going back to classrooms and she chose to retire again, Swann said. She thinks that for the most part, teachers who are worried are also hopeful and excited.

Swann said it makes sense for schools to make their own decisions because communities vary so widely. Although affluent families with large houses can set aside rooms for virtual learning, “a lot of our kids don’t have that,” she said. Some families live in single rooms with a hot plate. Sixteen percent of students are homeless or in foster care, she said.

“We really need to be guided not by the politics that we’re hearing out there, not by what other people are doing and saying, but by the community we serve and by the health department,” Swann said.

Many schools in IPS serve families facing similar challenges, which is one of the reasons leaders stayed committed to an in-person reopening for weeks before shifting to a virtual start. Now, IPS is hoping to meet the needs of some of those students through “hubs” for children who are homeless or have insecure housing.

Because charter schools and networks are typically smaller than districts, they can more easily make adjustments based on specific details, such as their buildings. Purdue Polytechnic High School, a network of charter schools with three campuses, will run its two Indianapolis schools on a hybrid schedule, with most students coming in two days per week and studying remotely the rest of the week, said Scott Bess, head of schools for the network. At the South Bend campus, which has lower enrollment, the network is planning to have students in person four days a week.

While school leaders rely on public health guidance, Bess said he believes that schools should be given wide latitude because the same plans that work for a small campus like Purdue Polytechnic runs wouldn’t necessarily work for a larger high school.

Schools can’t have it both ways, Bess said, by demanding local control in ordinary times and then deferring to other officials in times of crisis. “We’re making the best decision we can, and if it’s wrong, then that should be on me.”

But even as some charter schools consider the wishes of families and the conditions at their campuses, some educators argue that county health officials should take a stronger role in determining what is safe for the entire community and whether and how schools reopen.

“Administrators or teachers, we were not trained to manage a public health crisis,” said Tim Mulherin, chief executive officer of Irvington Community Schools, a charter network that runs elementary, middle, and high schools on the east side.

One reason why, Mulherin said, is because parents can be confused when they see schools taking such different approaches to health and safety. Irvington elementary school students can return to classrooms part-time, while the middle and high schools are entirely virtual.

“They say it’s an advantage to be somewhat independent,” Mulherin said. “But at a time like this, we sure would like most people to be on the same page.”

These new Indianapolis charter schools didn’t plan on a pandemic. They’re opening anyway.

2020-07-09T21:16:24+00:00

School leaders at Believe Circle City High School, a charter school opening soon in Indianapolis, had originally planned for students to spend Friday afternoons outside the classroom. They’d volunteer, visit colleges, and participate in neighborhood cleanups.

But many places have closed their doors or barred visitors because of the coronavirus, and some students won’t be in classrooms at all, opting for a virtual option — so school leaders are switching that experience to Zoom, rethinking what was once a defining feature of their academic model.

“With the pandemic, all of that feels almost impossible,” Believe Director Kimberly Neal-Brannum said.

Believe is one of five charter schools in Indianapolis that are opening for the 2020-21 academic year, in addition to three Indianapolis Public Schools “innovation schools” where charter operators are taking over management of existing schools.

These new schools face more challenges this year because of the pandemic, especially with enrolling students as families are preoccupied with a host of other concerns. School leaders who’ve spent years designing creative academic models are modifying aspects of their plans to catch up students from the spring, while pitching their personalized approaches as uniquely suited to connect with students in this disruptive environment.

The new schools see enrollment as a particular challenge in Indianapolis, which has a saturated school market that pressures schools to compete for students. Schools receive funding for each student they enroll, so leaders are under pressure to attract enough students to be financially sustainable.

Believe school staff members weren’t able to canvass for two months, and they suspect families were preoccupied with pandemic-related hardships that prevented them from enrolling. They anticipate 75 to 90 students this year instead of a target 90 to 115, Neal-Brannum said.

However, school officials at another new charter, Rooted School Indianapolis, have seen enrollment numbers surpass their goal. Before the coronavirus, Rooted leaders selected classrooms of about 200 square feet and a 1:15 teacher-student ratio, so now they’re confident that students will be able to practice social distancing. They’re opening with 60 ninth graders this fall and will add a class of 60 students each year to gradually populate the high school.

“We have the space, we have the technology and the resources to be able to help our students succeed and feel comfortable in this environment,” founder Ma’at Lands said.

As student well-being gains attention because of the pandemic’s effect on families, leaders of a charter called the PATH School are stressing their commitment to social and emotional development. The PATH School, which is overhauling Indianapolis Public Schools’ Stephen Foster School 67, will provide teachers with six days of training on social and emotional development to help ensure students feel safe when they return to school buildings, school leader Alicia Hervey said.

Here are the charter schools opening in Indianapolis:

Believe Circle City High School

Believe will use dual enrollment, in high school and community college or technical school, to jump-start high school students to a career certification or associate degree. Students will complete most of their high school credits in grades nine and 10 and will start taking classes through a local community college in grades 11 and 12.

Believe is founded by people of color who are “invested in ensuring that people of color see themselves at all levels of education,” Neal-Brannum said. As racial justice protests spread across the nation in recent months, school leaders revamped their ninth grade literature course to focus on social justice and are weaving discussions about the current civil rights battle into other curriculum.

Rooted School Indianapolis

Rooted School is opening at Eastern Star Church in Arlington Woods. The church will offer families support like financial aid and food to help children focus on their education.

Rooted’s academic model focuses on technology, and through industry partnerships, students can work toward technology certifications and paid internships. School leaders hope that students will graduate with both a college offer and a full-time employment offer.

They plan to provide university student tutors, personalized plans, and extra support outside school hours to address learning losses during the pandemic. At least 60% of enrolled students are taking summer classes, Lands said.

The PATH School

The IPS board voted earlier this year to restart the near northside’s School 67, or Stephen Foster, under The PATH School’s management in an effort to improve its chronically low test scores. The decision was initially met with passionate resistance from some parents, who worried about losing staff with whom they’d already built connections. Some of those opponents were eventually won over once they learned more about the new operator.

PATH stands for Purpose, Achievement, Talent, Heart. Among planned changes, teachers will move to content-specific teaching, meaning students will have different teachers for each discipline. In an expansion of support for students and teachers, the new leaders will increase school social workers from one to three, and instructional coaches will help teachers develop skills by subject.

Adelante Schools

Adelante Schools will take over management of Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School on the south side. The campus will remain a K-8 innovation school, which means it’s overseen by Indianapolis Public Schools but managed independently. Donnan was previously run by for-profit operator Charter Schools USA, which was recently ousted from managing Donnan and two other Indianapolis takeover schools.

The new operator is a non-profit organization based in Indianapolis and led by Eddie Rangel and Matthew Rooney.

Of the other schools formerly run by Charter Schools USA, Howe High School has closed and existing charter school Christel House Academy will run Manual High School and later move its south campus into the building in 2021.

HIM By HER Collegiate School for the Arts

This school will open for K-2 with a focus on serving students from marginalized families. Its model centers around academic rigor, character development, and a strong school community.

HIM by HER stands for Helping Improve Mankind by Healing Every Race. The non-profit was founded in 2014 by Michelle Christian Dunn and Harry C. Dunn III, an Indianapolis homicide detective whose goal is to target at-risk children and counteract the school-to-prison pipeline. The charter purchased the school building that formerly operated as the IPS Forest Manor Professional Development Center on the east side.

GEO Next Generation Academy

At this east side high school in partnership with Indiana Black Expo, students take dual-credit classes at Ivy Tech Community College for free. They can start taking college classes in ninth grade and will be able to earn an associate degree before graduating high school. The campus will open this fall for grades nine to 11 and add 12th grade in 2021.

GEO also runs Gary Middle College, and its 21st Century Charter School in Gary will function as a model for the new Indianapolis campus. The charter network previously ran two schools in Indianapolis, but both were moved to other operators before closing in 2015.

Phalen Leadership Academy Elementary at Louis B. Russell School 48

This neighborhood school was managed by IPS until this year. IPS hired Phalen to run the campus as an innovation restart school. The pre-K-6 campus will stay in the same building but under new leadership.

Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy

Phalen Leadership Academies will run an all-online K-12 school. Phalen’s students can also access online enrichment programs, field trips, and classes in art, physical education, and science and technology.

The school will offer a 25-day boot camp in the fall to remedy learning loss and will continue online learning through the summer. Students will take scheduled classes with teachers in real time.

Dozens of Indiana charter and private schools receive federal coronavirus rescue loans

2020-07-06T22:25:04+00:00

Dozens of Indiana charter and private schools received substantial federal relief funds aimed at helping small businesses through the coronavirus crisis, according to a partial list released Monday by the federal government.

Among them: Christel House Academy, a K-12 and adult high school charter network in Indianapolis, received from $2 million to $5 million in federal Paycheck Protection Program funding for its 180 employees.

Some other charter schools received from $1 million to $2 million, including 21st Century Charter School at Gary, Herron High School, Irvington Community School, and Tindley Accelerated Schools.

PPP loans presented an additional opportunity for federal relief funds for charter schools — which are publicly funded, tuition-free, and independently run by nonprofits — and private schools. The forgivable loans, aimed at maintaining payroll, weren’t available to public school districts. (Chalkbeat is also a nonprofit and received federal paycheck protection funding.)

Some charter schools that applied for the program met an outcry since they were still receiving public funding and some take in hefty donations from wealthy benefactors. But in Indiana, charter supporters contend that those schools receive less public money than do traditional districts, since charter schools don’t get a cut of local property tax revenues.

Like other schools, charter schools are facing high expenses for reopening classrooms during the pandemic and uncertainty over how they could be affected by budget cuts. All schools — district, charter, and private — are sharing other federal coronavirus relief funds earmarked for education, though how they split it has also stirred controversy.

Before the federal government released Monday’s list of nonprofits and businesses receiving at least $150,000 in PPP loans, it was unclear how many charter or private schools had benefited from the federal funds unless they publicly disclosed the amounts. The list only included ranges for the loan amounts, not exact figures, and organizations receiving less than $150,000 were not named.

Several charter schools that partner with Indianapolis Public Schools accepted PPP loans, including Ignite Achievement Academy and Matchbook Learning, which took over management of struggling district schools. Purdue Polytechnic High School and Herron also operate under the district’s umbrella. Known as “innovation schools,” these schools are independently run through contracts with the district, and their enrollment and performance count as part of IPS.

The list includes nearly 12,000 Indiana businesses receiving portions of the $521 billion distributed so far in PPP loans. Several private schools got loans of $1 million to $2 million, such as Bishop Chatard High School, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, Heritage Christian Schools, International School of Indiana, Roncalli High School, and The Oaks Academy.

Other education groups also benefited from PPP dollars, including Early Learning Indiana, an early childhood advocacy group and child care provider; the Central Indiana Educational Services Center, a nonprofit hub supporting schools; EdChoice, a group that backs school vouchers; and The Mind Trust, a charter advocacy group. (EdChoice is a supporter of Chalkbeat.)

How these Indianapolis teachers are using Minecraft for hands-on learning

2020-06-04T21:28:39+00:00

When Indianapolis schools closed due to the coronavirus, Gregg Nowling’s engineering and design students were in the middle of building projects using foam core, hot glue guns, and X-Acto knives.

With only a few days notice, Nowling had to find a way to teach some of the same concepts remotely to his students at the downtown campus of Purdue Polytechnic High School, a charter school with a focus on project-based learning and backing from the well-funded school reform group XQ. (XQ is a project of the Emerson Collective, which is a funder of Chalkbeat through the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.)

He shifted to using SimCity, a computer game where players design and grow their own metropolises. That soon sparked an idea from one of his students: Maybe they should build a community in Minecraft?

Gregg Nowling in his home office.

A game that’s been embraced by educators globally, Minecraft is flexible to adaptation, and it allows students to build with digital blocks and learn coding skills. Nowling soon paired up with Andy Mundell, an engineering, design, and physics teacher at Purdue Polytechnic, to see how they could give students the tools to build in Minecraft from their homes.

“So much of online learning is staring at a screen,” said Mundell, who has taught for 12 years and also mentors the robotics team. Minecraft is still on a screen, he acknowledged, but students must set up their computers and code. “We really didn’t want to give up hands-on learning.”

Eventually, Nowling and Mundell settled on a version of Minecraft that would work that runs on Raspberry Pi computers, which are popular among hobbyists. They are about the size of a 1-inch-thick credit card and cost the school less than $100 each, Mundell said. Students hooked them up to televisions and monitors provided by the school. Then, students use the coding language Python to build in the Minecraft world.

“I’m a 47-year-old man who doesn’t play video games, so I had to learn all of this,” said Nowling, who has taught for over a decade. “It’s been exciting for me to see that it was really in fact kids that came up with class.”

We spoke with Nowling and Mundell about the Minecraft project, what it’s been like to adapt to remote project-based learning, and ways they are finding joy while home-schooling their own children.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

What has been your favorite lesson to teach remotely and what about it works well?

Mundell: For me, it’s definitely the thing that me and Gregg are doing. It’s a Raspberry Pi with a simplified version of Minecraft on it. And we’re learning and teaching Python coding to the students, letting them interact with that world in ways that wouldn’t be possible without coding.

It just works so well because it brings those things together. And it does it within an environment that the students are already excited for — because maybe they played Minecraft. But maybe they don’t actually know as much as they think they do because they maybe have never coded in Python or they’ve never used a Raspberry Pi. It’s kind of a nice little space between their comfort and their interest and pushing them outside of that zone as well.

Nowling: This class is amazing — to get to see the artistic ability that these kids have, the ability to build. At the end of this class, Andy is designing this world, and each kid will have a block of space where they can put their building. They have to orient their houses, or whatever they’re building, so that they all face the inside of the street. They’ll get to pick who their neighbor is and how those houses connect and what their yards look like. And at the end of all this, they’re going to send us their code, and you will be able to walk around and go from house to house to house or building to building to building in a virtual way.

An assignment by Purdue Poly student Clark Miller.

What are your students learning from the Raspberry Pi project and have they surprised you in how they use the devices or approach their work?

Mundell: One of the main things that I’m looking for — and I’m kind of focusing a little bit on the coding side of this — is logical thinking, writing code, and how you organize it and plan it to accomplish what you want. And so I’ve already been very impressed with what students have done. I created some little tutorials about Python code. And I gave them a basic assignment that said, write code that simulates a magic eightball.

Many of them did the response in a way that I didn’t expect but I could tell that either they had a little bit of coding knowledge in the past or they had gone and explored how to make these things more efficient.

Nowling: For me, I’m looking at creativity and how complex their designs are. What materials are they using, and what are the design elements? From the get-go, I’ve been absolutely blown away with what these kids are coming up with. One of the first projects we had to do was to build a house in Minecraft and one of the kids built a castle along with a Trojan horse. Another kid built a lakefront cottage. It’s just amazing to me the things that they know how to do, but also just the depth of quality that some of them are really putting in. That’s the thing that has impressed me the absolute most — just seeing the artistic side of them coming out.

What misconceptions did you have about online learning when schools first shuttered due to the coronavirus?

Nowling: All in all, it’s been a really seamless thing. The negatives are what the negatives are. You don’t get to see your kids in person. You don’t get to hold them as accountable. But from an educator standpoint, I think in some ways we’re doing some exceptionally remarkable stuff. Even before the coronavirus, all of the academic classes, like math and science and English, had already been taught online at Purdue Polytechnic. So for us, a lot of this is just business as usual. Except that we’re teaching these passion projects online.

Mundell: I think the misconception is that you’re just gonna continue your classroom as it was. Because you absolutely can’t. You have to have different ways of connecting with the students. You even have to have some different expectations for what they can learn or what activities are worthwhile in this environment.

We do have some students whose lives are chaotic. Especially right now. If our goal is to go through the algebra standards and hit all of them, we’re just gonna make this miserable for everybody. But what can we do to keep learning fun, to keep learning meaningful, and to keep that school community? I think the goals we have right now have to be a little bit different.

What advice would you give parents who are being asked to help teach their children at home while school buildings are shuttered?

Mundell: The first advice is, the teachers are still there, so still email, still call. Another thing I’d say is, try to enjoy it. I’ve got a kindergartner and it’s kind of fun to go through some of those kindergarten lessons that I don’t ordinarily do and to connect. Being a teacher, I’m trying to instill how valuable education is and how fun it is to learn.

Nowling: I think being positive is 98% of it. If you, as a parent, are knocking what your kid’s being expected to do or what they’re trying to learn, then they’re just not going to take it seriously. I have a sophomore in high school — he’s a student at our school. I have to be on top of him to make sure that he gives me the amount of time that I feel like he should put in during the course of the week. The other cool thing is that I get to watch what my son is doing in his other classes. One of our teachers was doing a baking thing, and I got to watch him bake bread or muffins or something like that. So in some ways, it’s a super cool time to be a part of my kid’s education.

State charter board will require Indianapolis schools to use Enroll Indy

2020-04-30T00:14:02+00:00

The Indiana Charter School Board voted Wednesday to require Indianapolis campuses it oversees to participate in the city’s common enrollment system, Enroll Indy. As a result, families are now one step closer to being able to apply to all public, choice schools in Indianapolis Public Schools boundaries through one website and office.

Until now, a handful of charter schools have been reluctant to cede control of their enrollment to Enroll Indy, a lottery-based single application process for families to register for IPS magnet schools and charter schools. Most of the public schools in IPS boundaries now use the three-year-old system, but two notable holdouts are the state-authorized networks Christel House Academy and Phalen Leadership Academies.

When schools seek charters from the state board, they will now be required to participate in Enroll Indy, after the board approved the new policy without dissent during its virtual meeting Wednesday. Existing schools that do not use the system will only be required to participate once their charters are renewed.

The state board had previously left the decision up to schools. But Indiana Charter School Board Executive Director James Betley said that data shows that Enroll Indy gives the city’s most disadvantaged families access to school choices through a transparent lottery system.

Using the enrollment portal will help the state charter board oversee campuses more effectively. In recent years, many of the Indianapolis schools overseen by the board have struggled with enrollment, and some have opened with just 30 students, Betley said.

“One of the issues is, we have no idea what their enrollment is,” he added. “Not only is it self-reported, but there is no way to verify it.”

Many of the city’s charter schools are already required to participate. The mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, which oversees most Indianapolis charter schools, already mandates participation for new and renewed charters. It is also typically required by IPS as part of innovation partnerships, which allow charter schools access to some district services or buildings while maintaining independence. (Both Christel House and Phalen participate in Enroll Indy at campuses that are innovation schools.)

When families apply for seats through Enroll Indy, which also does outreach to help them find schools, they rank the schools they would like their children to attend. Each student is typically given a seat at the highest ranked school where a spot was available based on the lottery. The system runs winter and spring lotteries for the upcoming school year. During the summer and current year, students enroll in schools with open slots on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Proponents of common enrollment systems say that it allows schools to more accurately plan for the coming year because parents cannot hold spots at multiple schools. But one reason why some schools are reluctant to participate in Enroll Indy is that the system does not have waitlists — instead, schools are expected to plan for attrition by admitting additional students.

Sarah Weimer of Christel House Academy said that she is concerned that without a waitlist, the network won’t be able to prioritize students appropriately during the late enrollment period.

“We think that it’s important ... that we are able to call students and families who do meet those preferences — the low-income preference, the sibling preference — to be able to backfill any open seats that we have,” Weimer said. Without a waitlist, she argued, some students will “essentially jump ahead of any student who wasn’t placed with us as their first or second choice.”

But Bill Murphy, executive director of Enroll Indy, said that when it comes to making a system-wide decision about whether to have waitlists, “we look at who is most likely to be impacted.”

“The fact of the matter is,” Murphy said, “the very families who are coming from low-income backgrounds, who are historically under-served are the ones who engage in summer transition.”

At Indianapolis’ School 99, innovation strategy aims to ‘jump-start’ improvement without disruption

2020-03-10T22:26:31+00:00

An Indianapolis elementary campus wants to become the district’s first “jumpstart” school, an approach that aims to improve the struggling campus without the massive staff overhauls that are common at schools that are restarted with charter partners.

If the Indianapolis Public Schools board approves Principal Tihesha Henderson’s proposal, School 99 — also known as Arlington Woods — would become an innovation school with a focus on emotional support for students and teachers under her leadership. The school, which would see these changes next school year, would also partner closely with the community development arm of Eastern Star Church.

As an innovation school, it would remain part of the district, but it would be managed by an outside organization. The teachers would work for that nonprofit, and the school would not be bound by the contract that the district’s teachers union negotiated. That would give Henderson the freedom to change the school schedule to give teachers more training, and it would give her more flexibility over how much she pays staff.

“We are working hard every single day, but it’s just not enough time for our teachers,” Henderson told the school board during a meeting Monday.

School 99 would increase pay for staff who help with student behavior problems to compete with neighboring districts and offer bonuses for teachers who mentor new educators, according to Henderson. It would also add time to some school days, she said, and one day a week there would be an early release to give teachers extra training.

Of the district’s 20 innovation schools, five are campuses that have chosen to convert to innovation status in the past. Most of those conversions were framed as a way of enhancing schools that were already relatively successful. But at Thomas Gregg Neighborhood School, the transition was an attempt to revitalize a long-struggling campus with the support of nearby community groups — and the School 99 restart would follow a similar model.

But the approach also raises questions about how much improvement relatively modest changes will yield — and whether meaningful changes could be made without converting schools to innovation status.

School board member Venita Moore, who represents the eastside area around School 99, said Henderson has done a great job with the culture of the school. But she wants to see campuses try new approaches without becoming innovation schools with outside managers.

“My biggest concern has been around the fact that schools feel they have to jump outside our district to be great,” she said.

Arlington Woods is no stranger to home-grown improvement strategies: It was the original site of Project Restore, a teacher-led turnaround approach that was a forebearer of innovation schools, although it no longer uses the model.

School 99 used to earn top marks from the state, but it has had declining results on state tests for the past several years, and it got F grades for the past two years. Henderson said the school is already making strides when it comes to improving the culture and she expects to see gains in test scores.

“Over the years, we’ve been navigating trauma, and trying to figure out what that meant for our families,” Henderson said. “I think now we’re in a position where we know what we’re doing. We know what we have to do, and we know how to really take our students from A to Z.”

Several school board members seem interested in the new “jumpstart” model because it means that principals and some school staff will stay, giving students a dose of stability amid other big changes at their school.

“I like the model jumpstart,” said board member Taria Slack, during a discussion Monday of how many teachers may stay at School 48, a school facing a restart with a new operator that aims to keep a large number of educators. “I like the fact that jumpstart preserves some of our teachers and our staff.”

After a marathon of feedback, IPS board backs overhauling two struggling schools with charter partners

2020-02-28T22:47:07+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools is moving forward with plans to overhaul two struggling campuses in a decision that came after a large contingent of parents and advocates weighed in, with most speaking in support.

The IPS board tentatively backed proposals to restart School 48 and School 67 as innovation schools, which would be managed by charter operators under the oversight of the district. If the board approves the changes at its March meeting, the principals, teachers, and other staff at the neighborhood schools likely will be replaced.

Whether to restart School 67, also known as Stephen Foster, has become one of the most controversial overhaul decisions the board has faced. The neighborhood campus has dismal scores on state tests, but many parents and staff were stunned by the decision to hand the school to a charter manager, and vocal opponents came to the board meetings last month.

That made the two board meetings this week something of a test of whether the operators that may take over the schools had been able to persuade anxious parents that the overhauls would be best for their children. And supporters of innovation schools turned out in force — including a large contingent of families and staff from other campuses who spoke about their positive experiences.

It was clear that the public feedback weighed heavily on board members, several of whom shared long statements about their decisions. Board member Evan Hawkins said the district’s low passing rates on state tests and the especially low passing rates for children of color cannot be ignored.

“Though I do not believe that test scores tell the whole story of any school community, these statistics are intolerable,” Hawkins said. “For generations across this nation, this state, and this city, we have seen what happens to our children and what they lose access to when they are not given the mere opportunity to be prepared academically.”

On Thursday, Hawkins was joined in supporting both overhauls by Michael O’Connor and Diane Arnold. Venita Moore, who was absent Thursday, said on Tuesday that she supported continuing the process for both schools. Elizabeth Gore supported the restart of School 48 but not School 67. And Taria Slack and Susan Collins said they opposed both overhauls.

Many family members of children at School 48 and a few from School 67 spoke in favor of the new operators — including some parents who had initially opposed the restarts.

No one exemplified the change of heart that some parents felt as much as Angela Cordova, who has four children at School 67, a westside elementary and middle school. When the plan to restart the school and replace the educators was announced, Cordova helped lead unusually vocal opposition.

This week, Cordova focused on her frustration not on the potential change, but on the district. “Every child in that school deserves a chance — a chance that you failed to give them,” said Cordova, during the public comments portion of Tuesday’s meeting. “You saw us failing and didn’t help.”

Cordova, who is one of many parents at restart schools who didn’t realize the campus had an F grade from the state, now says she loves the potential operator selected to restart School 67. Cordova told Chalkbeat that in the days since she initially opposed the overhaul, she researched innovation schools on her own and visited an existing campus.

She also met with Alicia Hervey, the local educator who is founding the PATH, a planned charter school the administration recommended as the new operator of School 67. Cordova said she connects with Hervey “on a mom level,” and she trusts her to help the school.

“I think this would be very beneficial to all the kids,” she told Chalkbeat. “I think a change is what we need.”

In contrast with School 67, the resistance to the proposed overhaul of School 48, also known as Louis B. Russell, was muted. In part, that’s likely because the elementary school on the near northside has received years of failing marks from the state. The district administration previously attempted to improve it by placing it in its transformation zone, a group of struggling schools that receive extra resources and attention. Superintendent Aleesia Johnson is recommending that the campus be taken over by Phalen Leadership Academies, a charter network that also runs two other Indianapolis Public Schools campuses.

Several parents from the school told the board Thursday that they support overhauling the campus and want Phalen to take charge.

Joseph White, a parent at School 48, became a supporter after visiting an innovation school. White’s daughter attends the pre-kindergarten program for students with special needs, and last month he told Chalkbeat he was skeptical about the restart. But at Thursday’s meeting, he told the board he supports the overhaul.

“I do believe innovation would be the best way for this school,” White said. “I can tell you one thing, if it’s not restarted, she will not be going there. My daughter deserves the best.”

More than 70 people signed up to speak for the public comment period at Thursday’s meeting, which O’Connor estimated was the largest crowd since he joined the board, and each speaker’s time was reduced to 2 minutes.

But even though the proposed operators had support from many parents, the meeting was tense. A smaller number of family and staff members from School 67 spoke against the plan. And as the meeting came to a close, an uproar broke out with a handful of angry parents and educators yelling at the board and superintendent because they had expected a formal vote based on flyers from the district.

Since Indianapolis Public Schools began overhauling failing campuses as innovation schools five years ago, six schools have been turned over to outside managers. The schools have freedom from some district requirements, and educators at the schools work for the charter managers and are not covered by the district teachers contract.

School board member Venita Moore said at the Tuesday board meeting that she believed the district waited too long to overhaul School 48. But in the future, she suggested the district should try to bring families into the conversation sooner. “Would it be better for us to allow more time on the front end?” she asked.

Jamie VandeWalle, who oversees innovation schools for the district, said officials have begun asking themselves “how do we make sure that everyone within the schools and then families who send their students to schools every day truly understand the performance of their schools?”

The board also supported partnering with Adelante Schools to run Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School. Adelante would be the first charter school run by Eddie Rangel, who previously led a Tindley charter school, and Matthew Rooney, an Indianapolis native who led a charter school in New York City.

The Donnan elementary school was launched as an innovation school run by Charter Schools USA in collaboration with Indianapolis Public Schools after the state seized the middle school from the district. Earlier this school year, Indianapolis Public Schools ended its partnership with Charter Schools USA, and the state board voted to return the campus to the district in January.

IPS parents are resisting restart at their school. Will the district listen?

2020-02-20T23:06:33+00:00

When Angela Cordova finally paused to check her voicemail late one night in January, she was stunned by the robocall she’d received. The school district had chosen her neighborhood school, where she had been a parent for five years, for overhaul.

That means the principal and teachers could be removed next school year, and Indianapolis Public Schools could hand control of School 67, also known as Stephen Foster, to a private, charter operator tasked with improving its rock bottom state test scores.

Cordova loves the staff at the Westside campus, which educates about 600 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade, and fears that if the school becomes a charter, it will not serve students with special needs well, she said. So, overnight, the mother of four students at School 67 became an activist.

“I really feel like pulling the rug from underneath the school’s feet is not the way to go,” Cordova said. “I think this school has the means and the opportunity. They just need a little support.”

In the days after she learned about the plan, she began reaching out to other families, and fielding anxious calls from parents she had never met before — she estimates she’s spoken to more than 70 family members from the school. Cordova was one of about a dozen family members and educators who attended a recent meeting to plead with IPS Board members to reject the dramatic improvement plan and keep the current principal and staff in place.

While it’s unclear how many parents at School 67 support the overhaul, an unusually vocal campaign to halt the restart has district leaders facing a crucial question: How much of a say should parents have in whether schools with chronically low test scores are overhauled?

The Indianapolis Public Schools board is expected to decide next week whether to move forward with the innovation plan.

School board members have said repeatedly the district needs to do a better job engaging families before decisions are made, and Superintendent Aleesia Johnson’s administration has made a push in her first year leading the district to reach out to residents. District officials also say that in the future, they want to make sure that parents understand how their schools are performing so they are not surprised by proposed interventions.

At School 67, however, many parents said they felt stunned by news of the restart.

While policymakers often focus on concrete measures, such as test scores, when judging school quality, parents and community members may value other factors, said Joshua Glazer, an associate professor of education policy at George Washington University. When district leaders decide to take over a school, “they are imposing their own definition of failing,” he said.

***

Over the past five years, Indianapolis Public Schools has restarted six struggling schools with innovation partners. Those schools are still considered part of the district — which counts their test scores and enrollment — but they are managed by outside charter operators, and the teachers are not represented by the district union.

Although some of the restart decisions were controversial, school board members have often been able to sidestep the question of parental input because opposition has been mixed with support. A parent organizing group, Stand for Children Indiana, and the new school leaders often persuade families that the overhauls are for the best. But as political opponents of innovation schools grow more organized, they could amplify criticism of restart plans.

Whether the board supports the overhaul of School 67 and School 48 — a near northside campus where a proposed restart has been met with less resistance — are important tests because it has not voted on any restarts since two members who are skeptical of the approach won seats in 2018. They would also be the first overhauls approved during Johnson’s administration.

Jamie VanDeWalle, who oversees innovation schools for the district, said that while some parents at School 67 may be happy with their teachers and relationships, data shows that students aren’t meeting their full potential.

“Our job is to make sure that every student leaves… ready to do whatever they want to do next in life,” VanDeWalle said. “We feel a really strong obligation to make change when we think change is what’s needed in order to ensure that kids can do that.”

When it comes to test scores, School 67 is getting unusually weak results. Just 3.7% percent of students passed both the state math and English tests, and the school also got low marks last year for the gains students made on those exams.

It’s difficult to say how much input parents should have in restarts because they may not be aware of the problems and low test scores in their schools, said Gary Henry, dean of the University of Delaware’s College of Education and Human Development, who studied turnaround work in Tennessee. “Often the parents that are most active are the parents of the kids who are having the best experience,” he added.

But Henry cautioned that in Tennessee, takeover was not the most successful approach to turnaround. “In many schools, not a single adult employee who was there the previous year is there after the restart. And that’s a jarring experience for kids,” he said.

The power imbalance between the school system making decisions about restarts and families whose kids are at struggling schools can be particularly stark when it comes to innovation because the upheaval often affects low-income families and families of color.

For its part, School 67 serves a diverse population. It is located at the edge of Haughville, a working class neighborhood on the Westside of Indianapolis Public Schools, and nearly half of its students are English language learners — about twice the district average. More than 70 percent of students come from low-income families.

Before the administration recommended the restart at School 67, it held a sparsely attended focus group with parents and surveyed others to find out how the school was doing. But the campuswide meetings about innovation came after the central office had decided to recommend the restart to the school board.

For Cordova, it was galling to feel like she had no input on what would happen to her children’s school. And she found a kindred spirit in Chrissy Smith, an activist with the IPS Community Coalition, a local group with ties to a national movement that supports teachers unions and opposes charter schools.

“IPS thinks that they can just come in and do what they want to schools and parents aren’t going to stand up and say anything,” said Smith, a Westside parent who plans to run for school board in the fall. She tells parents, “’if you don’t want this, you have to speak out.’”

The Community Coalition offered parents at the schools facing overhaul advice on how to make the case against the restart. One document posted on Facebook entitled “What you can do to fight for your school!” included a list board members’ email addresses and instructions on how to signup for public comment. Another suggested questions to ask, including, “Why do we get no say in this decision before it was made?”

When Henry Ingram, who has two grandchildren at Stephen Foster, went to a couple of the district hosted parent meetings, it seemed “like they got their mind made up,” he said. Ingram said he opposes the restart because he has concerns about whether the campus will serve his grandchildren well if it becomes a charter school.

But Justin Ohlemiller, executive director of Stand for Children Indiana — which organizes parents and campaigns for school board candidates who support innovation schools — said that the vocal opposition at School 67 is the product of a national, pro-union movement that is allied with the Community Coalition and “spread[ing] fear” about restart efforts.

Still, Ohlemiller said he’s in favor of more parental involvement in these decisions. “I think parent input should absolutely play a role, a much stronger role in any decision to restart a school,” he said.

***

For many parents at School 67, the innovation recommendation came as a surprise because they hadn’t known the school was struggling and been given F grades from the state.

“They were shocked to know that the school was going to be restarted,” said school board member Elizabeth Gore, who attended one of the meetings at the campus. “They feel that their children are very stable in the environment.”

District reports on some of its lowest-performing schools, which Chalkbeat obtained through a public record request, show that School 67 had a lower growth score on the state exam than all but two of the 10 other struggling schools that were targeted for school quality reviews. The school received 62.6 points for “growth,” which measures how much students improve on exams. That’s more than 20 points lower than the district average.

Still some educators and parents say that test scores alone are not an accurate measure of a school. Standardized exams, they argue, narrow curriculum, punish schools with large shares of low-income students, and are consistently plagued by administrative problems.

In fact, full test results, which are typically included in state A-F grades for schools, have not been released for most Indiana schools because Indiana officials waited for lawmakers to approve a hold harmless measure following a precipitous decline in scores across the state in 2019.

Curtis King, who has five children at Stephen Foster, said that despite the school’s failing grade, it has done well by his children: Four of them are honor roll students, and his third-grade twins have developed the independence to be in separate classes. “It’s been great,” said King, who opposes the overhaul and fears a charter operator wouldn’t provide as much support to students with special needs.

Those are concerns that Alicia Hervey, who leads a charter school that could become School 67’s new operator, has heard from several parents in recent days. Hervey is planning a school called The PATH that the district could choose to takeover School 67. The model is built around “path” teams of educators that focus on groups of about 150-200 students and include a social worker or therapist, a special educator, an instructional coach, and an educator who follows students after they leave.

“We designed a model with a special educator on every single path team because we believe so strongly that support is the key to student success,” Hervey said. “We are not telling kids they can’t come to us. We are not walking away from the challenges of special education.”

In the days before the board decides on the future of School 67, some parents, teachers, and activists are making the case against dramatic intervention. Despite the school’s enduring academic challenges, they say educators have supported their children and families when they needed it most.

“I think sometimes parents are, they are attached to the teachers and they have that relationship,” said school board member Diane Arnold, who represents the neighborhood around the school. But most students at the campus are not on grade level, she said. “Where do we draw the line?”

What’s an IPS innovation school? Here’s your cheat sheet

2020-02-13T21:21:13+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools is already growing its roster of so-called innovation schools for next school year, and the school board will likely make several decisions on whether to add more independently managed campuses in the coming weeks. These choices could have an enduring impact on the shape of the district.

In the five years since the network began, it has grown at a rapid clip, and more than one in four Indianapolis Public Schools students now attend an innovation school. But many local parents and educators still don’t fully understand what defines an innovation school, in part because the term covers schools that are so different.

The district’s 20 innovation schools share a few commonalities: They have substantially more freedom from central office edicts, so they can choose their approach to academics, discipline, and staffing. Teachers in the schools work directly for the outside managers, and they are not represented by the district union. And because the relationships between the district and the school managers are enshrined in contracts, the schools would have some stability were the tide to shift and Indianapolis Public Schools leaders to become less supportive of the approach.

Innovation schools, which were created by the state legislature, allow districts to get credit for the academic performance and enrollment at independently run schools, while the campuses gain access to buildings and services. The unique partnership between the district and charter schools has drawn national attention to Indianapolis. Still, many of the city’s charter schools remain outside the innovation network, and not all innovation schools have charters.

As the Indianapolis Public Schools board prepares to consider new potential innovation schools, we have a primer on the many types of schools that are considered part of the network.

Some innovation schools do not have charters. While the majority of schools in the network also have charters from either the mayor’s office or the state charter school board, several schools are managed by nonprofits without charters. Those are typically campuses that used to be district neighborhood schools or magnet schools — and include Edison School for the Arts, Cold Spring, and the Super School. Many of these campuses are called “conversion” schools because the principals chose to pursue innovation status.

Campuses without charters have a much closer relationship to the district. For example, Indianapolis Public Schools has more legal responsibility at those schools, where it usually provides special education services. They are also primarily funded through the same model as other schools in the district, which aims to provide money based on student needs.

Innovation schools without charters depend on the district for legal authority to operate, and if the school board were to cut off support, the managers would not be able to continue running the schools. That’s what happened to Emma Donnan Elementary School when the board voted to end its contract last year.

The district is leaning on the model to improve its lowest-performing schools. From the start, the innovation schools that have gotten the most attention are so-called “restart” schools, which are campuses with low scores on state tests that Indianapolis Public Schools overhauls by handing them to charter operators. The new managers typically replace the principal, teachers, and other staff.

Since the program began, six schools have been restarted. Those campuses typically have charters, but they still receive some services from the district, such as transportation. Some of the schools have notably improved test results, while others have continued to struggle.

This year, there will be a new hybrid. For the first time, Indianapolis Public Schools has added a category of schools that they believe could use innovation status to improve results — without replacing the principal and teachers. They would be called “jumpstart” schools, and the innovation conversion would be initiated by the school leader. But while conversion schools are typically campuses that have relatively high performance, jumpstart is designed for schools that are struggling before they become innovation schools. The label is new, but it’s pretty similar to what happened at the Thomas Gregg Neighborhood School, a struggling campus that chose to become an innovation school in 2017 with the support of nearby neighborhood groups.

Innovation schools with charters may still have strong ties to the district. KIPP Indy opened as a charter years before there was an innovation network. But the charter network was among the first schools to join forces with the district five years ago, and the ties have grown stronger. It is one of several innovation schools that occupy Indianapolis Public Schools buildings and depend on the district for some services, such as transportation.

If Indianapolis Public Schools pulled back from the strategy, innovation schools in district buildings could be in a tight spot. But those with charters would have a chance at finding new locations.

A few innovation schools are almost entirely independent from the district. Since opening as an innovation school in 2016, Purdue Polytechnic High School has maintained a relationship with the district and connection to middle school students from diverse backgrounds. But the school is not in an Indianapolis Public Schools building, and it does not receive transportation from the district.

That puts Purdue, and other independently run schools, in a strong position when it comes to its relationship with the district because if the school or district ended the innovation agreement, it would have a modest impact on school operations. That independence was on full display two years ago, when the district and Purdue Polytechnic went toe-to-toe over control of the former Broad Ripple High School building.

Opposition mounts to innovation ‘restart’ of two Indianapolis neighborhood schools

2020-01-31T04:13:27+00:00

At an emotional and sometimes rowdy school board meeting, parents, teachers, and activists rallied to convince the Indianapolis Public Schools board that it should not overhaul two struggling campuses and hand control over to new, outside managers.

One after another, about a dozen speakers came to the podium to share their stories about School 48 and School 67, telling board members that those schools are getting better and have dedicated principals and teachers who should not be replaced. Their arguments built on the ones School 67 families and educators made at another board meeting two days before.

It was a rare level of vocal, organized opposition to the district’s strategy of restarting campuses with chronically low test scores and turning them into so-called innovation schools. If the board approves Superintendent Aleesia Johnson’s recommendation to restart the schools, the new managers would likely hire new principals, teachers, and other staff. The teachers at the overhauled schools would not be employed by the district and would not be covered by the union contract.

The board is expected to tentatively decide in February whether to pursue the overhauls and if so to consider contracts with new operators in March.

In making the case to restart the schools, district officials pointed to low state test scores and the results of district-led quality reviews, which assess schools through visits, interviews, and surveys. School 48, which is also known as Louis B. Russell, has received five consecutive failing grades from the state. School 67, which is also known as Stephen Foster, has received two failing grades.

“There are undoubtedly bright spots. And the gains that have been made can and should be celebrated,” said Jamie VanDeWalle, who oversees innovation schools for the district. But she concluded that given the “level of change” that’s needed at the schools, “we believe an innovation restart is the tool that we should leverage at this time.”

The district has handed six struggling neighborhood schools to charter operators since it began creating innovation schools in 2015, and the board has approved all of the restarts recommended by the administration. But last year, three newly elected members joined the board, former Superintendent Lewis Ferebee left for another post, and Johnson — who was interim superintendent at the time — did not recommend restarting any schools. That makes the decisions on School 48 and School 67 significant tests of the board’s current support for the aggressive strategy.

Many of the board members appeared torn, expressing concerns about the intense opposition from families and raising a litany of questions about both the quality of the schools and the process for selecting them.

School board member Diane Arnold acknowledged the frustrated comments, saying that the district needs to find a way to involve families earlier in the process. “I do feel like a lot of these parents feel blindsided,” she said.

Whether the board will ultimately support the restarts remains unclear.

“We want stability and we want performance, too,” said board member Susan Collins.

The schools also face unusual challenges that some commenters highlighted. At School 67, nearly 45% of the 600 students are English language learners — about twice the district average. The campus, which begins with prekindergarten, has also expanded over the past three years to serve middle school.

At School 48, about 24 percent of students have special needs, compared to 17 percent districtwide. The elementary school is in the gentrifying northside neighborhood of Mapleton-Fall Creek, and it has shrunk over the past decade to fewer than 300 students.

Most of the opponents who spoke this week were from School 67. But on Thursday, they were joined by a handful of people from School 48, including Principal Arthur Hinton, who has led the campus for nearly three years.

Staff and supporters of School 48 work to understand students and help them do their best, Hinton said, explaining: “No two-week test window can create a clear picture of who our children are and what they need.”

Delario Bledsoe, a School 48 parent, told Chalkbeat after a meeting at the school Monday that he’s worried that adjusting to new teachers will be hard on the students. His son has been at School 48 since preschool, and he is now in third grade. Bledsoe said the family has had a good experience at the school, and he just learned it is getting failing marks from the state. “I’m just shocked about that,” he added.

Joseph White, another parent at School 48, said he’s not completely opposed to the restart. But he’s worried that the new teachers won’t be as dedicated. His daughter, who was born four months premature, is in the pre-kindergarten program for students with special needs. When she started last year, she couldn’t walk, White said. Now, she is thriving, walking and singing her numbers and letters.

“This is stuff that she does that she never did before,” White said. “The work I see here is definitely not an F.”

Parents, teachers speak out against restarting School 67 as an IPS innovation school

2020-01-29T03:56:25+00:00

About a dozen parents and educators from School 67 pleaded with the Indianapolis Public Schools board at a meeting Tuesday night not to replace the principal, teachers, and staff — people who several speakers described as a “family.”

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson’s administration is expected to recommend Thursday overhauling the struggling campus as an innovation school and bringing in an outside manager that would likely hire a new principal, as well as new teachers and staff.

Through tears, parent Christina Brown asked the board not to change School 67, which is also known as Stephen Foster.

“That whole staff is a family. They love the parents. They are so welcoming. They are so helpful,” said Brown, who has four children at School 67. “Keep that building. Keep that family.”

None of the board members addressed the comments or spoke about the school. Johnson declined to comment on the recommendation before it is officially presented to the board Thursday.

Three years ago, the westside school was expanded to include middle school, and it now serves about 600 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade. Nearly 45% of students at School 67 are English language learners, more than twice the district average and one of the highest rates of any campus. More than 70% of students come from low-income families.

When the district restarts schools with innovation partners, the aim is to improve campuses that have often had years of low test scores. School 67 has two years of failing grades from the state, and it was one of 11 schools that were selected for school quality reviews this year based on test scores. The evaluations include meetings with educators, students, and families at struggling schools.

But many of the parents from School 67 argued that their school didn’t need new management — it needed help.

Angela Cordova has four children who love their teachers at School 67. “Your system failed — not my teachers,” she said. “Why not give them the means to help these children better?”

Meredith Brooks, a social worker at School 67, said that the school educates many students who grapple with trauma — such as being placed in foster care, witnessing domestic violence, or experiencing homelessness. That makes consistency and strong relationships especially important.

“So why are we now outsourcing the education and care of these children? Why are we taking their stability away from them?” Brooks asked.

Bilingual assistant Fitzgerald Celestin, who helped translate for some parents at the board meeting, described School 67 as a “phenomenal place” that draws families through word-of-mouth but also faces challenges.

“We need tools,” Celestin said. “We need supports from you to keep our school going, because our school is such a strong community.”

The district has handed several struggling campuses to charter operators since it began creating innovation schools in 2015, and the board has always followed the recommendations of the administration. But the level of opposition from School 67 parents and teachers is unusual.

Johnson’s administration is also expected to recommend the restart of School 48, a school in Mapleton-Fall Creek neighborhood that has received five years of failing marks on the state accountability system. No parents or staff from that school spoke Tuesday.

Renewing Phalen contract, IPS gives a vote of confidence to its first innovation school

2019-12-20T02:04:26+00:00

Indianapolis Public Schools has granted a local charter network another five years to continue its turnaround efforts at what had been a chronically low-performing elementary school on the far eastside.

The board voted unanimously Thursday evening to renew an “innovation school” partnership with Phalen Leadership Academy at School 103. Back in 2015, that school was the first to undergo a “restart” through outside management.

While the school continues to post very low passing rates on state exams, its students show significant growth on tests, and the district reported a much calmer school environment.

“This process reveals for us something that we already know — which is that school turnaround takes time, and it begins with things like stabilizing school culture,” IPS chief portfolio officer Jamie VanDeWalle told Chalkbeat.

The board delayed voting on a five-year extension of the innovation contract for Enlace Academy, a charter school geared toward English-language learners that operates in a district building in northwest Indianapolis.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson pushed back consideration of the renewal in order to provide more information on the school. On Tuesday, IPS board member Taria Slack had raised questions over a dip in school letter grades and feedback from focus groups of teachers, students, and families.

If the contract is extended, the district plans to start providing transportation funding for Enlace.

Innovation schools run independently while still falling under IPS’s umbrella, with their enrollment and academic results counting toward district totals. But they’re controversial because of their ties to charter operators and because teachers are not part of the district union.

“IPS is seeing success with recognizing innovation as one of the many tools in our toolbox, to make sure we can have all of our schools on a continuous improvement strategy and also offer quality options to families,” VanDeWalle said.

The Phalen renewal marks the first time that IPS has extended an innovation school contract. Last month, it ended an agreement with another innovation partner, Charter Schools USA, after the district raised concerns over dwindling enrollment and high teacher turnover at Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School. The split set off a battle for Emma Donnan and two other Indianapolis schools that have been under state control for eight years and were seeking charters in order to permanently leave the district.

Indianapolis Public Schools is poised to renew two innovation school agreements

2019-12-18T01:46:32+00:00

Five years into Indianapolis Public Schools’ unconventional partnerships with charter operators — arrangements that have transformed city schools and brought national attention to Indianapolis — the district appears likely to renew its first contracts amid some positive initial results.

The district is recommending a five-year extension of its innovation partnership with Phalen Academies, which is tasked with turning around School 103. Under Phalen’s management since 2015, the elementary school on the city’s far eastside has shown academic growth and cultivated a “calm, safe, and warm culture,” the district’s recommendation said.

In renewing the contract, the district would stop paying a hefty management fee to Phalen that no other innovation school was receiving.

IPS is also poised to renew its innovation agreement with Enlace Academy, a charter K-8 school that serves a high number of English language learners and operates in a district building in northwest Indianapolis.

The school board is set to vote Thursday on extending the Phalen and Enlace agreements.

The two renewal recommendations come on the heels of a messy break-up with another innovation partner, Charter Schools USA, which runs Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School. That split played into a political battle over three Indianapolis schools that have been under state control since 2012, including Emma Donnan.

Ending the Emma Donnan agreement proved that the district is willing to cut ties with outside operators that don’t meet its standards. But sticking with Phalen and Enlace would demonstrate IPS’ commitment to its innovation strategy for the long haul.

Since 2015, the district has been working with charter operators through this innovation strategy. Innovation schools run independently, but their enrollment and test scores count toward the district’s overall performance. The effort both looks to improve district schools and diversify options, while charter schools gain access to district resources and facilities. More than one in four IPS students now attends an innovation school.

It’s a controversial strategy. Innovation schools have won the district strong support from local charter advocates such as The Mind Trust. But pushback to the charter-friendly strategy, which allows schools to work outside the district’s teachers union, helped critics oust two school board members in 2018.

IPS continues to consider new innovation school proposals, including four prospective partners this year. But this year, it also started evaluating its existing partnerships since initial agreements are approaching their expiration dates.

The innovation renewals give IPS an opportunity to standardize contracts, by making changes such as ending Phalen’s unusual financial deal and instituting a $25,000 annual administrative fee that operators pay to the district.

Innovation schools located in district buildings would also be included in IPS’s review of facilities as it prepares to make cost-cutting moves, which could include closing schools and selling buildings.

Phalen Leadership Academies at School 103 was the district’s first innovation school in 2015. Phalen took over management of School 103 after the school earned several years of consecutive F grades from the state and was the site of “more student fights than many high schools,” the renewal memo notes. Despite a spike in teacher turnover two years ago, the school now sees broad parent and student support for the new principal and a much more positive school climate.

“Just comparing and contrasting the level of disarray that was in the school before we started, and then now, the culture and climate data — while not perfect — has made a lot of positive strides,” said Jamie VanDeWalle, who oversees the district’s innovation schools.

The school has made significant improvements in test score growth, although students’ proficiency rates on state standardized tests remain low. Last year, PLA at 103, as the innovation school is known, was issued an A based on student growth alone.

“We are extremely excited about continuing our work at PLA@103,” charter network founder and CEO Earl Martin Phalen said in an emailed statement. “We’ve appreciated the partnership with IPS and we hope to carry it on and continue to give our scholars on the Far Eastside the quality education, culture and learning experiences they deserve.”

At Enlace Academy, enrollment has been growing. The school posts reading scores above the district average — a notable accomplishment given that most students are learning English as a new language, district officials said.

Under the new agreement, the district would start paying for Enlace’s transportation costs.

“I think Indianapolis is showing what is possible in an educational landscape when everyone decides to work together,” said Kevin Kubacki, executive director of the Neighborhood Charter Network, which includes Enlace.

How Indianapolis Public Schools tried to improve diversity after a federal incentive fell through

2019-12-02T11:00:34+00:00

Three years ago, Indianapolis Public Schools had a chance to tackle one of its most stubborn problems: the lack of diversity in its schools.

The city’s segregated history left the shrinking district more racially and socioeconomically segregated in 2016 than when busing for integration began more than three decades earlier. Select IPS schools remained highly coveted by privileged families, while many struggling schools had high concentrations of poverty.

But a federal grant offered the opportunity to craft a powerful strategy to better integrate IPS schools.

Indianapolis Public Schools zeroed in on a few potential key activities already underway that officials hoped would promote integration, such as using its innovation strategy to partner with charter operators and leveling the playing field in the magnet school lottery, according to its grant application made public for the first time through a records request from Chalkbeat.

But after IPS applied for just under $500,000 through the federal grant, the political tides changed. In early 2017, the Trump administration canceled the Obama-era $12 million school diversity grant program.

Without the federal incentive, about half of the 17 largest districts that applied failed to follow through with their integration plans, Chalkbeat found. Indianapolis Public Schools, however, had submitted a plan that tracked with its existing priorities and moved forward with several decisions in the years since. District officials say those steps and other changes led to some improvement in school diversity, though the work is far from over.

Not getting the grant “did not impede our efforts,” said Patrick Herrel, IPS director of enrollment and options. “From the start, we knew this core idea of equity, as it relates to race, systemic racism, bias, and inequities, was something we would do regardless.”

While integration is tough to tackle, it holds the potential to lead to better academic outcomes for the district’s low-income students and students of color, who continue to significantly trail and face more obstacles than their more affluent and white peers. Race and poverty, the district’s application noted, are closely connected in Indianapolis.

The district didn’t follow the playbook it laid out in its application — without funding, it couldn’t pay for consulting, trips to other cities that officials considered models for integrated schools, or focus groups. But it did follow through with key changes to the way school choice worked in the district.

For the 2018-19 school year, the district started using a new common enrollment system, known as Enroll Indy, for its magnet school programs. Enroll Indy targeted its outreach in low-income neighborhoods, and the number of families applying for magnet programs significantly increased.

Combined with an earlier decision to give fewer families priority based on how close they live to magnet schools and keep some seats open for later applicants since low-income families were more likely to choose schools later in the year, IPS has seen its most sought-after programs grow more diverse.

Still, the district hasn’t completely equalized the magnet lottery, with some families still receiving advantages based on where they live and with more options concentrated on the north side of the city.

It’s more difficult to say what impact the innovation school strategy has had on diversifying the district. The grant application highlighted Global Preparatory Academy, a charter school that partnered with the district to attempt to turn around School 44. As a dual language program, Global Prep also attracts students from outside its neighborhood boundary.

Because the district uses charter partnerships as a strategy to improve low-performing schools, the grant application notes the potential for “developing high enrollment demand in low-demand areas.” Supporters note that innovation schools can be “diverse by design” through their curriculum, recruitment, and location. But innovation school partners bring different models, so it’s hard to draw blanket conclusions on how innovation schools affect school diversity.

Although it was not part of its original grant proposal, IPS also closed three high schools and moved to an all-choice high school system in 2018. The strategy was largely driven by budget constraints, but consolidating high schools helped diversify some campuses, such as Shortridge High School, according to a recent IPS presentation. It also put an end to some students choosing schools and others getting assigned based on which neighborhood they lived in, Herrel said.

“By that very structural change, we forced everyone to participate in a process where they control the program,” Herrel said, “which goes from choice advantaging those with social capital, to choice advantaging everyone.”

Still, diversity efforts take time, and it’s clear that there’s much more work to be done, both district officials and community leaders acknowledged. And regardless of school demographics, the district needs to better serve students of color and students from low-income families, advocates say.

“We want to make sure all of our students in the neighborhood, especially those from low-income families, are afforded high-quality opportunities,” said Barato Britt, executive director of the Edna Martin Christian Center’s Legacy and Leadership Academy.

Housing patterns and neighborhood segregation pose major obstacles, but schools can still undertake intentional equity efforts, said Mark Russell, director of advocacy and family services for the Indianapolis Urban League. This year’s standardized test scores showing significant gaps in passing rates based on both race and socioeconomic status underscored how critical those efforts are.

“What we have here is nothing short of a crisis for students of color, students who are low-income, and disabled students, based on test performance county-wide,” Russell said.

IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, who started leading the district this year, has named racial equity as a top priority and wants to take on tough conversations on how race and racism affect education. The district plans to highlight racial equity in its upcoming strategic plan and continue to expand its racial equity training.

“It feels like racial equity is now the thing that undergirds all of the decisions that we make, and there is a very intentional and constant focus of filtering everything through that equity lens,” Herrel said.

While IPS is taking some steps, truly integrating schools will necessitate bigger change and not “tinkering around the edges,” said Brandon Brown, CEO of The Mind Trust, a charter advocacy group that works with IPS on its innovation school strategy.

“It’s going to be hard conversations with folks who live in our community about race and class,” he said. “And it’s going to be up to people with the privilege to choose where they send their kid to school, either via their resources or ability to move. Without them helping to lead the integration effort, it’s never going to be successful.”

Did Indianapolis students do better after struggling schools were restarted? A new study takes a look.

2019-11-01T21:01:29+00:00

When Indianapolis Public Schools “restarted” chronically struggling schools, students who stayed under the new management sometimes made smaller gains on tests compared to their classmates who left, a new study finds.

Over time, however, students at the restarted schools closed some of the gaps.

The study by Public Impact, an education consulting group based in North Carolina, honed in on four elementary schools where IPS contracts with outside or charter operators as a turnaround strategy. It compared students who stayed through the overhauls to those who transferred to other schools.

Results were so mixed and the data set so limited that the study couldn’t draw clear conclusions about whether the IPS innovation schools they looked at “deliver on their promise.”

“We think it’s the right question to be asking, but we didn’t draw any strong conclusions based on the analysis because the data was so small,” said Daniela Doyle, vice president for policy and management research at Public Impact and the study’s co-author.

But researchers took early enrollment and test score growth, a measure of how much students learn in a year compared to their peers, as signs that interventions could be working and lead to more significant progress over time.

Restarting schools brought leadership and curriculum changes. The teaching staff often turned over almost completely. And while dramatic interventions sometimes sparked community pushback, the overhauls generally didn’t lead to students leaving in numbers greater than the typical annual turnover, the study found. Plus, student retention rates increased over time. The demographics of the schools largely remained the same, which the study took as an indicator that they still served students from the same neighborhoods.

But in the first years of a “restart,” students who stayed at Phalen Leadership Academies at School 103 and Ignite Achievement Academy made smaller gains in math and English than those who left, the study said.

At Global Preparatory Academy at School 44, students who stayed showed more improvements in English but fell behind in math. At Kindezi Academy, the results were the opposite.

But at two of the schools, students who stayed for two or more years saw more growth than those who left, particularly in math and particularly at Phalen, the longest-running innovation restart school.

“If PLA @ 103 can sustain these gains and other restarts can replicate them, they would provide strong evidence to support the restart model’s efficacy in IPS,” the report said.

Other recent data dives that included all Indianapolis innovation and charter schools have found that students at those schools showed more improvement on tests than their peers at traditional district schools.

Indianapolis Public Schools will soon have to review the performance of its first innovation schools, which launched in 2015. Next year, district officials will evaluate Phalen’s progress at School 103 in deciding whether to renew the innovation contract.

Innovation advocates have taken test score growth as a promising sign of improvement, though School 103 struggled significantly this year as passing rates tumbled across the state on the new ILEARN exam. Overall, innovation restart schools continue to post some of the lowest passing rates in the district.

Michelle McConnico, a spokeswoman for Phalen Leadership Academies, said the network had not yet reviewed the study but was proud of the gains made in student growth.

“So often in turnaround the impact goes far beyond what is able to be documented in testing,” she added in an emailed statement. “… [T]urnaround is about giving children and families options and opportunities to stay in the schools in their communities and still receive a quality education.”

The Public Impact study, which was funded by the Walton Family Foundation, also weighed the effects of the innovation changes by looking at the costs. (Walton also supports Chalkbeat. Learn more about our funding here.)

In addition to the money that goes to innovation schools through their contracts and extra dollars for intervention at struggling schools, the study notes that innovation schools get significant support from private funders, who may provide such services as consulting. That support can be difficult to track because the dollars don’t go through the district.

However, the district also uses about $500,000 in philanthropic funds each year to cover the salaries and benefits of four district staffers who work on innovation school partnerships. “The district plans to absorb these costs eventually, though it is not clear when,” the study said.

According to the district, those dollars come from grants from three groups that back the portfolio model of school governance: the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the City Fund.

10 new schools are seeking innovation partnerships with IPS

2019-10-29T01:27:07+00:00

Ten Indianapolis schools and networks are considering partnerships with Indianapolis Public Schools — a sign that charter interest in collaboration remains strong despite major changes in the district.

Potential partners include one of the city’s earliest charter networks, a campus with a mindfulness focus, and a school for teens who have struggled with drug and alcohol addiction.

Over the past 12 months, the school board was remade when candidates critical of charter schools defeated two incumbent members. In addition, the superintendent who created the district’s innovation network left to helm Washington, D.C., schools, and his former deputy, Aleesia Johnson, was elevated to the district’s top job. There is little indication, however, that these shifts will fundamentally alter the trajectory of the state’s largest school district.

The school board last week approved the relaunch and expansion of an innovation school. An additional 10 schools submitted letters of interest this fall to join the Indianapolis Public Schools innovation network. That’s on pace with the amount of interest the district received last year.

These letters are the first step in a process that could result in district partnerships. Schools must submit full applications to the IPS board and go through interviews before the district makes a final decision. The board will likely vote on agreements in early 2020 for schools that are set to open next school year — although some of the letters came from schools with later start dates.

Innovation schools are run by outside charter or nonprofit partners, and teachers are not part of the district union. The schools have access to district buildings and services, such as transportation. The district, meanwhile, gets credit for innovation schools’ enrollment numbers, student passing rates on state exams, and other performance data.

About a quarter of Indianapolis Public Schools students now attend innovation schools.

Four planned schools hope to partner with the district

One of the earliest Indianapolis-based charter networks is among those that have expressed interest in partnering with the district. Christel House Academy hopes to launch an innovation high school, and while its letter of interest didn’t specify a location, it would likely be near one of its existing campuses on the city’s south or west side. Three charter schools that plan to open next year also submitted letters: the Rooted School, a high school that will open at Eastern Star Church; Believe Circle City, a high school looking to open on the near westside; and Herron Preparatory Academe, an elementary school from Indianapolis Classical Schools, which also runs Herron High School.

Several operators are interested in overhauling failing schools

A veteran Indianapolis Public Schools principal, Tihesha Henderson, hopes to convert School 99, also known as Arlington Woods, to an innovation school. It would be a “jump start” school that aims to improve its outcomes without bringing in a new operator. The school would be known as Sankofa School of Success, with a model that “will allow students to learn through a therapeutic approach of mindfulness.”

Three other operators are interested in “restarting” chronically low-performing campuses, which have not yet been selected by the district. Those operators are the newly formed Adelante Schools, led by Eddie Rangel and Matthew Rooney; The PATH School, a planned school led by Alicia Hervey; and Phalen Leadership Academies, which runs several existing innovation schools.

Two schools, Herron Preparatory Academe and Allegiant Prep Academy, listed restarting a school as one of the potential innovation options they are interested in.

Two existing charter schools are interested in joining the network

The schools that submitted letters of interest in joining the innovation network include two existing independent charter schools: Hope Academy, a school for students recovering from substance abuse that previously announced plans to move closer to downtown Indianapolis; and Allegiant Prep Academy, a relatively new elementary school on the westside.

Indianapolis study abroad program to relaunch as a four-year school in Arlington

2019-10-23T18:58:31+00:00

An Indianapolis program that enabled students to study abroad will relaunch. Thrival Academy, which took a year-long “pause” to overhaul its approach — will reopen as a four-year high school on the Arlington Middle School campus.

Thrival ran a small pilot program in 2017-18 before officially launching last year as a one-year school that sent juniors from Indianapolis Public Schools to study abroad in Thailand. Beginning next year, it will instead accept about 75 ninth graders with the aim of becoming a full-fledged innovation high school.

Instead of heading to Thailand, the students will study abroad in the Dominican Republic as juniors, a logistically easier option that also fits with students learning Spanish in Indianapolis, said Jamie VanDeWalle, who oversees innovation schools for the district. Students will also take a short trip to Costa Rica when they are sophomores.

The new design of the program was approved 4-2 by the Indianapolis Public Schools board Tuesday. The two board members who voted against the plan — Elizabeth Gore and Taria Slack — said the school should remain a program.

Thrival will be one of several smaller campuses opening on the east side of the district after Indianapolis Public Schools closed two high schools in the community in recent years. District officials said the location was a good fit because Arlington Middle School, which formerly housed a high school, has lots of extra space. And India Hui, the school’s principal, is from the east side and has close ties with the community.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson described Thrival as an opportunity for students, which is “unlike anything we have in the district” and said that locating it in Arlington is an example of how Indianapolis Public Schools can be fiscally responsible about using existing space “to still grow programming.”

The expansion plan aims to make Thrival more financially sustainable and eliminate the need for students to shift back and forth between Thrival and other high schools — potentially disrupting career-training programs. As an innovation school, Thrival has its own board and is run independently, but it is still considered part of Indianapolis Public Schools.

As a four-year school, Thrival will have significantly more students and consequently more funding to support study abroad programs, though it will also look toward philanthropy to help cover costs. Because students will enroll in the school throughout high school, the program will be designed around their trips abroad.

Sterling Moore, a senior at Shortridge High School who attended Thrival, said the program exposed students to a new place and broadened their minds: “There’s no other curriculum or program quite like this one.”

Correction: Oct. 23, 2019: A previous version of this story misstated the study abroad locations. Juniors will study in the Dominican Republic and sophomores will study in Costa Rica. It has also been updated to clarify Gore and Slack’s reasons for voting against the school. They said they oppose making it a school rather than a program.

South Bend could embrace innovation schools with Purdue charter partnership

2019-10-18T21:19:40+00:00

In the face of shrinking enrollment and academic problems, the South Bend school district is in talks to form innovation partnerships with at least two charter schools — including Purdue Polytechnic High School, now slated to open its first campus outside the state capital.

If South Bend begins creating innovation schools, it would be the third Indiana district to pursue the strategy, which can bring charter schools under the auspice of the traditional school system. The South Bend schools, which enroll almost 16,000 students, is facing challenges that mirror some of those in Indianapolis Public Schools. Enrollment shrank by nearly 700 students this year, part of a steady decline as families opt for charter, private, and neighboring district schools. In the spring, the district staved off the threat of state takeover at a chronically failing middle school.

Now, the school system may take the radical step of forming innovation partnerships with charter schools, in a bid to boost enrollment and improve education for students in the working-class city, which also houses the University of Notre Dame. (The city has made national headlines in recent months as its leader, Mayor Pete Buttigieg runs for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.)

“All of our options are on the table,” said South Bend Superintendent Todd Cummings, who took over in July after serving as deputy superintendent and human resources director for the district. “It brings students back, it gives students options, and it gives us additional partners to work with on making our academics better.”

The only other Indiana districts with innovation schools are Indianapolis Public Schools, home to 21 such schools, and Gary Community School Corporation, which struck an innovation agreement with the manager of Roosevelt High School. In addition to the possibility of partnering with Purdue Polytechnic, the South Bend district is also in talks with Career Academy South Bend, an existing charter network of about 1,300 students seeking to expand its campus.

Innovation schools are independently managed by outside organizations. Their teachers are employed by the operator, and they cannot join the existing union. But the partnership gives the operators access to buildings and district services, such as busing and food service, depending on the terms of the agreement. And the district gets credit for the enrollment and academic performance of the schools from the state.

Currently, the South Bend district has four traditional high schools, with state grades ranging from A to C. Cummings said he thought Purdue Polytechnic could be a good option for students because it would help them win admission to Purdue University.

The possibility of creating innovation schools is the latest sign that the South Bend district could undergo significant changes under Cummings’ leadership. As deputy superintendent, he helped establish a transformation zone overseen by a dedicated board, which includes chronically failing middle school and the elementary schools that feed into it. He has also touted the potential of giving principals more autonomy.

Partnerships between district and charter schools are an increasingly common strategy across the country, transforming cities such as Denver and Newark. Advocates argue they can help improve struggling districts by bringing in expertise from successful charter schools, giving students access to new choices, and allowing principals the autonomy to make decisions for their buildings.

But the innovation model is controversial among critics of charter schools, who argue the schools can drain money and resources from traditional district campuses. So far there has not yet been vocal pushback against the plan in South Bend, Cummings said.

The Purdue Polytechnic charter network was founded by Purdue University with the aim of giving low-income students and children of color the kind of education that will prepare them to study at the university, and leaders plan to expand statewide in the coming years.

The science- and technology-oriented network chose South Bend for its first site outside of Indianapolis in part because the district has been open to working together, said Scott Bess, Purdue Polytechnic’s head of schools.

“They’re actively trying to figure out how do they make the South Bend schools collectively — without reference to kind of governance — how do they make them better?” Bess said.

Purdue Polytechnic is applying for a charter for the South Bend school from the Indiana Charter School Board this year. The new school would open before the first Purdue Polytechnic campus, which launched in 2017 as part of the Indianapolis Public Schools innovation network, graduates its first class. Last school year, its class of students outpaced the state average passing rate on 10th-grade exams, but there’s limited information on the success of the model, which is built around multi-week projects.

Bess says, however, that many Indiana students of color and children from low-income families are being left behind by high schools when it comes to their graduation rates, college enrollment, and long-term economic prospects.

“I’m not willing to sit by and say to a student who’s in seventh or eighth grade now, ‘Hey, sorry, we’ve got to wait another five or six years before we have rock-solid data,’ ” Bess said. “Why not take a shot if you know that what’s there is not working?”

Charter school for teens recovering from substance abuse seeks to relocate and join forces with IPS

2019-10-03T21:24:04+00:00

In an effort to attract more students, an Indianapolis charter school for teens who have struggled with drug and alcohol addiction is seeking a new charter and a new location. It is also considering a partnership with Indianapolis Public Schools.

Hope Academy, which enrolls 32 students, opened in 2006 inside the Fairbanks Addiction Treatment and Recovery Center in Lawrence Township. The rehabilitation center has not only housed Hope, but has also provided the school administrative support and significant financial backing.

The school’s relationship to Fairbanks, however, has also made it harder to recruit some students, said Rachelle Gardner, the school’s chief operating officer. That’s because Hope is often seen as a treatment option, rather than a school, and its relatively far-flung location on the northeast side of the city can make it inaccessible for many families, she said.

“The dream of the school was to have a much larger impact on the community,” Gardner said.

The school aims to move closer to downtown, although a location has not been chosen, and develop stronger partnerships with Marion County school districts, Gardner said. Officials hope those efforts enable it to roughly double its enrollment to about 60-75 students.

Ahead of anticipated changes, the school has formed a new nonprofit entity and is seeking a new charter from the Indianapolis mayor’s office. The Indianapolis Charter School Board held a hearing to review the school’s initial application Wednesday, and is expected to vote on November 21.

Hope also submitted a letter of interest in an innovation partnership with Indianapolis Public Schools, and is in early-stage discussions with the district, Gardner said. Joining the innovation network allows charter schools to gain access to services, such as busing and food service and, potentially, to space in district buildings.

Gardner believes a partnership with the district would raise awareness of the school as an option and make it more likely that counselors and other staff would refer students to Hope.

“We’re different than other schools. It’s not us just coming in to enroll students away from IPS,” Gardner said. “Our purpose really is to help the townships and the private schools as well with those students that they just don’t know how to help anymore.”

Recruiting new students would be essential for Hope. The school gets per student funding from the state, as well as from grants and philanthropists. But it still relies heavily on Fairbanks for funding, and in order to be financially sustainable without that subsidy, it would likely need to significantly increase enrollment.

That’s a concern raised by Kenneth Riggins, chairman of the Indianapolis Charter School Board, which oversees the existing school and is considering Hope’s application for a new charter.

“The finances are something that is extremely important,” said Riggins, who said he has not yet decided whether to support the school. But, Riggins added, if the school is able to attract more students it could be financially sustainable: “If they were to find a location central for everyone, I think it increases the opportunity to have more students.”

‘Overlooked for far too long’: Eastside church partners with The Mind Trust to launch new middle school

2019-09-26T18:07:31+00:00

In a pocket of Indianapolis’ eastside, a church is bringing together charter schools and Indianapolis Public Schools to build a neighborhood education pipeline from prekindergarten through 12th grade.

On Thursday morning, Eastern Star Church announced a partnership with local charter advocacy group The Mind Trust, with the goal of attracting an educator to open a middle school in Arlington Woods. The church also unveiled a location on its campus for Rooted School, a charter high school opening in 2020 with support from The Mind Trust.

“We know that our children can learn, and we know that they can produce, and so we just believe if we’re working together, we can make that happen,” said Senior Pastor Jeffrey A. Johnson, Sr.

To open a middle school in Arlington Woods as early as 2022, The Mind Trust is offering a two-year fellowship for an educator to design and launch a school that will serve as a bridge between the neighborhood elementary school, Arlington Woods School 99, and Rooted School. The fellow would be paid up to $100,000 per year plus benefits.

Eastern Star, meanwhile, is supporting School 99 as it seeks to become an innovation school under Indianapolis Public Schools. Principal Tihesha Henderson recently completed a fellowship from The Mind Trust to convert the school into one that, while still considered part of the district, is run by an outside or charter operator.

The church’s collaboration continues the city’s unconventional path uniting the traditional public school district with the charter sector. And the effort is also notable because it’s driven by a community group, rather than charter advocates.

“The only way by which we can work together to address that common enemy — the systemic racism and systemic economic challenges that so many in our community face, particularly black and brown children — is by coming together,” IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said during a press conference. “So I deeply believe that it is time-out for the arguments and the wars and the disagreements. We can have those, but we can never lose sight of the fact that we have a community of children who are waiting for us to do the right thing by them.”

The partnerships also expand the charter movement on the eastside aimed at serving African-American students and students from low-income families, filling a gap left in part by the district’s recent consolidation of high schools.

Sandwiched between clusters of schools on the near-eastside and the far-eastside, Arlington Woods is nestled in the crook of I-70, I-465, and Massachusetts Avenue — “a community,” Johnson said, “that, unfortunately, has been overlooked for far too long.”

While advocates say more high-quality schools are needed in the area, new charter schools also feed a dynamic where schools can struggle to be financially sustainable as they compete for students and the funding that follows them.

The education push adds to Eastern Star’s community development efforts, called The ROCK Initiative, which has also worked to address financial security and housing needs in Arlington Woods.

Rooted School, a model replicated from New Orleans, is focused on preparing students for in-demand jobs, such as those in the tech industry, through internships and certificates. The ultimate goal is to give each student “personal pathways to financial freedom,” said local school leader Ma’at Lands.

“Hopefully, this partnership can be a signal to others that when we’re talking about transforming communities, it can’t be from the outside-in,” said The Mind Trust CEO Brandon Brown. “It has to start with folks that are most impacted by the racial injustice that we see in our society.”

Back for more: DeVos returns to Indianapolis for a repeat visit to an innovation school

2019-09-17T17:13:36+00:00

Purdue Polytechnic High School in Indianapolis, and its educational model, are once again getting attention from Washington, D.C.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visited the charter school’s downtown location on Tuesday as part of her “Back to School” tour, which aims to highlight school choice and programs that prepare students for college and careers. The Indianapolis school, started by Purdue University, is testing a radically different, project-based approach to education to prepare students for science, technology, engineering, and math degrees.

It’s the second time in as many years that DeVos’ team has visited Purdue Polytechnic, which is an Indianapolis Public Schools innovation school run independently under the district’s umbrella. Last September DeVos’ assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education said he was “very, very happy” with what he saw at Purdue Polytechnic.

On Tuesday, DeVos toured a handful of classrooms. Some students worked on printing three-dimensional models of younger children’s drawings, others were giving presentations on “the science of happiness” and building catapults to learn about projectile motion.

“I think it’s a great approach to learning for a lot of kids,” DeVos said. “I know I wish I would have had some experiences like this when I was in high school. Hands-on, project-based learning, it really works for a lot of young people.”

A staunch advocate for school choice, DeVos has repeatedly cited Indianapolis — with its large charter sector, private school voucher program and unconventional district partnerships with charter schools — as a national model. When asked why she chose to visit a school her administration had seen previously, DeVos said she’s heard about the school for a “couple of years” and had it at the top of her list to visit.

“I’ve really focused on trying to visit schools that are doing things differently to meet students’ needs and to help students achieve, and so Indiana is one of the leaders in the country in this regard,” she said.

Now in its third year, Purdue Polytechnic focuses its work not on traditional academic classes, but on a series of community-based projects throughout the year. These projects aim to incorporate the skills Indiana high schoolers are expected to learn. The school was founded with the goal of preparing more students — particularly students of color and those from low-income families — for degrees in math, science, technology, and engineering.

Purdue Polytechnic now has 377 students in grades nine to 11 at its downtown location in Circle Center Mall and around 75 students in grades nine and 10 at its new location in Broad Ripple, school officials said. About a third of the students are black and nearly a quarter are Hispanic, according to 2018-19 state data.

It will be another year before the school graduates its first class and its model can be evaluated on its postsecondary placements for students. So far, the only state measure available is standardized testing. In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, 62.5 percent of its students passed the 10th-grade ISTEP exam.

When asked how she measured the young school’s success before making the decision to highlight it, DeVos pointed to the fact that students were enrolling.

“First of all, students are choosing to be here, families are choosing to be here, they see the opportunity,” DeVos told the media. “And we believe that there should be a wide variety of approaches to learning and teaching and a wide variety of experiences for kids to be able to learn and achieve.”

This is the second time in two months that DeVos has visited Indiana. In August she toured The Last Mile, a coding program for inmates that expanded last year to Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility, about 30 miles northeast of Indianapolis.

That visit followed her calls on U.S. Congress to expand and make permanent the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program, which offers grants to inmates to pursue postsecondary education before being released. DeVos called the program in Pendleton a “good model” for second-chance education, saying it’s “very consistent” with President Donald Trump’s criminal justice reform agenda.

DeVos said she would also visit Purdue Global, the university’s online college for working adults, on Tuesday before heading to Ohio.

Here are the Indiana education stories we plan to cover this year — and how you can help

2019-09-13T19:39:15+00:00

The school year roared in like a lion, yanking us from our summer daydreams and thrusting us into the thick of the perennial controversy over test scores. But as the cooler weather ushers us calmly into fall, we wanted to take a moment to share our goals for the year.

We at Chalkbeat Indiana want to be transparent about our coverage plans to hold ourselves accountable and seek your input, too. This year, we plan to connect more with students, families, educators, and community members who have a stake in our public education systems. Your perspectives help inform our work.

If you have questions, ideas, or insights to share, you can reach us at in.tips@chalkbeat.org. We will also hold a listening session Oct. 3 at the MLK Center in Indianapolis to hear what parents want to know more about and how we can be a better resource for families.

We also welcomed a new reporter this summer, Emma Kate Fittes, who is covering state education issues and has a particular interest in special education. You can get in touch with her directly at ekfittes@chalkbeat.org.

Here are some of the key storylines that we’re following this year.

How will a new leader steer Indianapolis Public Schools, and what is the future of innovation schools?

Indianapolis Public Schools is undergoing a dramatic transformation that is redefining the role of a traditional public school district, and its new leader appears poised to continue the change that has captured national attention. But new Superintendent Aleesia Johnson has taken over at a critical time, and she’s going to face a number of tough decisions about the future of the state’s largest district.

First, it’s time to start evaluating its innovation strategy of turning to charter operators to run district schools. Five years into the innovation experiment, Johnson — who oversaw the partnerships in a previous role — will have to decide whether it’s proven to be an effective turnaround model and whether to stick with the strategy. The results at innovation schools vary: Some showed early progress, but test scores remain low at many campuses.

Johnson answers to a divided school board, and it’s not clear how new members will fall on these biggest decisions. So far, the personable Johnson appears to be winning over many local stakeholders, but she’ll also have to handle innovation school critics.

Johnson also faces monumental budget problems, and she will likely need to make tough decisions about closing schools.

Plus, she has made it a personal priority to address long-standing racial gaps in the district, pledging to have more conversations about how to better serve the district’s black and brown students.

Reporter Dylan Peers McCoy will continue covering the district. Contact her at dmccoy@chalkbeat.org.

How have charter schools changed the Indianapolis education landscape?

In the spring, the executive director of the state’s charter school board raised a question: Are there too many charter schools in some parts of the city?

Nearly two decades after the creation of charter schools in Indiana, some education leaders say Indianapolis has hit a saturation point, where there are too many schools and too few students — an equation for under-enrolled, financially strapped schools. And yet educators still want to open new charter schools in Indianapolis, with leaders saying not all students across the city have access to high-quality schools.

How will the changes to Indiana’s graduation rules affect students and schools?

To shift emphasis to career and technical education, Indiana recently changed its requirements for graduation to allow more ways for students, particularly those who aren’t college-bound, to earn their diplomas. Education leaders are hopeful that this will set up more Hoosiers to be successful after high school. This means high school — and what students learn — could look a little different.

How far will Indiana advance on early childhood education amid a growing advocacy effort?

Once among the last in the nation for early education, Indiana took a big step this year by making its pilot prekindergarten voucher program available statewide. But expanding hasn’t been easy — raising awareness of the pre-K opportunity has taken time, and the program hasn’t hit capacity. Those challenges pose hurdles to the political fight by businesses and early childhood advocates to build the program and win more funding from the Republican-controlled legislature.

Indianapolis hard hit as ILEARN state test scores tumble

2019-09-04T17:40:43+00:00

Students at Paramount Schools of Excellence spent much of last year doing school work on computers, instead of with paper and pencil. It marked a dramatic shift for the charter network, as it aimed to get children ready for the state’s new computer adaptive test.

It was essential experience for many students who come from low-income families and aren’t immersed in technology at home, said Tommy Reddicks, Paramount’s CEO.

That practice may have helped Paramount, a growing eastside charter network known for posting strong test results. Its newly opened Community Heights campus had one of the highest ILEARN passing rates in the state, with 76.7% of students passing both the math and English sections of the exam. Because the campus is still small, however, just 30 students took both tests in 2019. Its sister school, Paramount Brookside, had one of Indianapolis’ highest passing rates, 56.2%. Still, it was down about 24 percentage points compared to 2018.

“It is a much harder test,” Reddicks said. “I think the whole state is struggling to find value with scores that are coming in so low, when so much of our identity is tied to those scores.”

Results on state exams plunged in 2019 — with a statewide passing rate of 37.1%. Just four Indianapolis public schools had higher passing rates in math and English on ILEARN than they had last year on ISTEP, the prior test. About 180 public schools saw passing rates fall — many by percentage points in the double digits. (Indiana students in grades 3-8 took ILEARN for the first time this year, while high schoolers will continue to take ISTEP for the time being.)

It appears increasingly likely, however, that the low passing rates won’t have significant consequences for most schools and teachers. Although the scores were released Wednesday, news of the dramatic declines has been seeping out for days.

With the results looming, politicians including Gov. Eric Holcomb and State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick have called for Indiana to hold schools and teachers “harmless” by preventing them from being negatively impacted by low ILEARN scores.

Passing rates fell at districts across Marion County. The highest passing rate was in Speedway, an A-rated district, where 50.9% of district students passed both the math and English exams. In Franklin Township, which had comparably high performance last year, passing rates fell to 44%.

In Indianapolis, the traditional school with the lowest passing rate is Arlington Middle School, an Indianapolis Public Schools campus where just one student passed both sections. Districtwide, the passing rate on ILEARN was 13.8%, about 10 percentage points lower than the passing rate on ISTEP last year.

Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said the district is not pleased with its state test results. But she also said the declines don’t track with data the district has been collecting from assessments it gives to students throughout the year, which show progress.

“It is also frustrating as district leaders and for our families to be on this sort of roller coaster of shifts in state assessments,” Johnson said. Increasing distrust in the results from the state test make it hard for schools to learn from the scores, she added.

The state test results are of particular significance, however, for the six struggling schools that were overhauled and became innovation schools, with management handed over to outside charter operators. The controversial strategy, which began four years ago, aims to turnaround some of the city’s lowest-performing campuses. In prior years, some schools restarted with innovation partners saw large gains.

But this year, none of those schools had ILEARN passing rates above 6 percent. At the first failing school to be overhauled, Phalen Leadership Academies at School 103, the passing rate fell to just 2.1%. Officials from Phalen did not return a request for comment.

Indianapolis Public Schools continues to have wide gaps in the passing rates for students of color and children from low-income families, compared to their white and middle class peers. Those gaps show up in both state exams and the district’s own assessments, Johnson said.

“It’s important to continue to be really focused on our work around racial equity, and closing the gap, because those held true no matter which assessment you looked at,” she said.

Similar to last year, schools across Marion County have large and persistent gaps in passing rates for their most vulnerable students, including in some of the city’s higher-performing districts. In Washington Township, for example, 66.6% percent of white students passed the test, 38.5% percent of multiracial students passed, 18.6% percent of Hispanic students passed, and 18.4% percent of black students passed.

As the largest district, Indianapolis Public Schools often draws wide attention, said Brandon Brown, CEO of The Mind Trust, an influential non-profit that supports charter schools, but townships also have significant disparities.

“As a community, we need to acknowledge that there are significant gaps across the county,” Brown said. “I don’t think township districts should be off the hook for the performance of their students.”

Emma Kate Fittes contributed reporting.

Betting on Indianapolis “innovation” schools, The Mind Trust names three new fellows

2019-07-10T13:00:18+00:00

One of the most influential education organizations in the city is betting that Indianapolis Public Schools will continue handing struggling schools to outside managers despite a recent slowdown.

The Mind Trust announced Wednesday that it had selected three new fellows who will have two years to prepare to lead their own “innovation” schools. The fellows will spend their time training and planning to lead schools while the district decides whether to turn over additional campuses to outside operators and whether to partner with new charter organizations.

“We definitely feel confident in the fact that the board is going to continue focusing on growing high-quality innovation network schools,” said Brandon Brown, CEO of The Mind Trust.

The fellows include Matthew Rooney, a native of Indianapolis who currently leads a charter school in New York City, and Eddie Rangel, an Indianapolis educator who most recently led an elementary school in the Tindley charter network. Together, they plan to open an elementary school based on the practices at high-performing schools around the country.

Geoffrey Fenelus, a charter school principal who moved with his family from New York City this month, is the third fellow.

The new fellows were chosen from over 50 applications, Brown said. These fellowships are valued at about $200,000 per year and include an annual salary and benefits, as well as support such as training and legal assistance. The vast majority of innovation schools were founded with backing from The Mind Trust, a local nonprofit that also supports charter schools.

Indianapolis Public Schools fast-growing innovation network included 20 schools last year and served 25 percent of the district’s students. But the program has been controversial, and at a time when the district was in flux last year, the administration chose not to restart any struggling schools with outside charter partners. The only new innovation school this fall will be the KIPP high school, an expansion of a network the district is already working with.

If the fellows do not end up taking over existing schools, they could open new charter schools either in the innovation network or independent of the district.

Innovation schools are premised in part on the idea that innovative models can turn around struggling schools. But many of the schools The Mind Trust has supported have relatively conventional educational models.

That’s because the fellowship is built around helping strong leaders realize their visions, said Brown, noting, “In terms of models, we are relatively agnostic because we start with a leader.”

Fenelus said that he is still developing the approach for his school, but he already determined students will take art classes and physical education every day.

“Especially in a high-stakes culture, where people push for academics and push for rigorous curriculum — sometimes athletics and arts get sidelined,” he said. “We are trying to approach a structure where it’s more holistic.”

The two-year fellowship offers a long runway for planning a school, and Fenelus said it will be especially useful because he is new to the city. “It takes time to build relationships,” he said. “We owe it to people to build that familiarity with them.”

The Mind Trust will also continue to work with two fellows who were selected last year: Alicia Hervey, who was previously the dean of student development for Christel House Academies, and Kim Neal, who was the managing director of secondary education for the charter school network KIPP DC.

District leaders have said the decision to create only one innovation school next year was not indicative of a change in direction. But last November, two candidates who are skeptical of innovation schools unseated incumbent board members who had supported the model. And the district was until recently led for six months on an interim basis by Aleesia Johnson, who was selected to fill the position permanently last month.

“I am excited for these diverse, well-prepared leaders to join the IPS team as we work toward giving every student an equitable education,” Johnson said in a statement Wednesday.

Two other school leaders were also awarded a fellowship to launch an independent charter school. Jenn Watts and Nikki Henson, of Indianapolis, plan to create a science, technology-, math-, and engineering-focused K-8 school for girls that will also partner with the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana.

Meet the three finalists for Indianapolis Public Schools superintendent

2019-06-14T21:04:15+00:00

Two local school leaders — including interim superintendent Aleesia Johnson — and a Louisville school administrator are finalists to become Indianapolis Public Schools’ next superintendent, the district announced Friday.

Johnson has been seen as a top contender since she took the helm on a temporary basis in January. She was previously a deputy superintendent and helped pioneer the district’s partnerships with charter schools.

Larry Young is the assistant superintendent of elementary education in Pike Township, on the northwest side of Indianapolis. He has worked for Pike Township schools for 21 years, according to his LinkedIn page, including as an elementary school principal and as a teacher.

Devon Horton has been in the midst of state takeover and racial equity debates in Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky, where he serves as chief of schools. He has also been recognized for his school turnaround work in Illinois. In the last few months, Horton was named as a finalist in two other superintendent searches — in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Rochester, New York — but ultimately did not win either job.

All three candidates have extensive experience in urban education, but none of them have prior experience leading a school district. All of the finalists are black, which some community members highlighted during the search process as being important since the district is largely made up of students of color.

The finalists will face public interviews at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the central office, 120 E. Walnut St., Indianapolis. The board is accepting written questions from the public and will address common themes in the public interviews.

The board hopes to name a superintendent by the end of June.

The three finalists were chosen from 11 applicants after interviews behind closed doors last month. Despite an avowed desire for an open process, the board ultimately chose to keep applicants secret but release the names of finalists.

Devon Horton

Horton was brought into the newly created role of chief of schools at Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville a year ago, tasked with overseeing school operations, and guiding and evaluating school principals. He started the job as the district was fending off state takeover, with district leaders touting his arrival and experience with school turnaround.

In his letter of interest for Indianapolis Public Schools superintendent, Horton emphasized his work on closing achievement gaps, highlighting the challenges of both implicit biases and disparities in opportunities.

“As a minority urban school leader, I will be able to connect students and staff across all races through culturally responsive practices through equitable policies and strategic implementation,” Horton wrote, later adding, “Together we can continue to build on the success and become a national model of excellence in equity education.”

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Horton said he would emphasize creating culturally responsive environments and diversifying the teacher pipeline to try to close those gaps. He also wants to build better family and community engagement.

To improve Indianapolis schools, Horton said he would be interested in using the 5Essentials, a model developed in Chicago to support struggling schools by focusing on effective leaders, collaborative teachers, involved families, supportive environment, and ambitious instruction.

Horton’s experience in struggling schools likely intrigues Indianapolis board members, who have been supporting the unconventional method of improving schools by handing them over to outside operators — the district’s innovation school strategy. His letter of interest also touches upon developing highly effective school leaders, which is a key to innovation schools.

In Jefferson County schools, Kentucky’s largest district of 101,000 students nationally known for its integration efforts through extensive busing, Horton said he drives the district’s racial equity policy. The district faces glaring racial disparities in discipline and test scores, with African-American students faring far worse than their white peers.

Roughly half of the schools in the Louisville district have been flagged for improvement by either the state or the district itself. Jefferson County schools is undertaking a new turnaround effort that includes extra pay for teachers at struggling schools.

As the only non-local candidate, Horton will have to address how he’ll adapt his strategies for Indianapolis’ unique challenges, and board members may want to know why he’s been searching for other jobs less than a year into his current post.

Horton told Chalkbeat that his ultimate goal has been to become a superintendent. Working in different cities, he said, has made him a quick study and adept at navigating politics. But if he wins the post in Indianapolis, “I plan on being there for the long-haul, to help the district become a national model — not just in theory, but actually in results,” Horton said.

Earlier this year, Horton was one of two finalists to lead the school district in Grand Rapids, Michigan — but the school board split over whether Horton could lead the 16,000-student district, choosing instead to restart the superintendent search process.

Horton was also one of four finalists in the superintendent search this year in Rochester, New York, and interviewed in 2016 to lead the school district in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

Horton previously worked as deputy superintendent in East St. Louis, Illinois. He spent 14 years in Chicago Public Schools as an educator, leading the turnaround of Wendell Phillips Academy High School. Horton has two school-age children.

Aleesia Johnson

As interim superintendent, Johnson is the first African-American woman to lead the district. She announced her application to be superintendent in April, and she enjoys wide support from local leaders who are enthusiastic about innovation schools.

But her candidacy is controversial. Critics of Ferebee’s administration have raised concerns about her level of experience and her ties to charter schools.

A former principal of the KIPP Indy middle school, a local charter school, Johnson joined the district four years ago to oversee the new innovation schools. Innovation schools are considered part of the district but they are independently managed by charter or non-profit operators. The strategy has attracted national attention to Indianapolis Public Schools.

Through a district spokeswoman, Johnson declined an interview request but said in a statement: “It has been an honor to lead the district the last five months, and I am excited to be a finalist for the permanent role.”

Johnson focused her letter of interest on her district experience, including her work on innovation schools, closing and reconfiguring high schools, and recently giving raises to district employees.

She also honed in on gaps in achievement and opportunities for students of color and students from low-income families: “There is no one who can fix it for us. It is on us. We are the ones we have been looking for, and I believe that solutions already exist among the people who deeply care about our students, our schools and our community.”

Johnson made the challenge personal, talking about the decision to enroll her children in district schools. “As a black woman who is raising black children, it is crushing to know and have real evidence of the ways in which our society — including our educational system — falls short in cultivating the academic growth of black students,” Johnson wrote. “I aspire to lead a district in which parents of color can be confident that their children are attending schools where they feel safe, valued and their growth is cultivated every single day.”

In the public interview, Johnson will likely have to face the criticism against her and address how she’ll work to bridge divides and engage the community. Board members will also likely be interested in how she would further develop the innovation strategy moving forward.

Larry Young

As assistant superintendent, Young oversees Pike Township’s nine elementary schools. Pike Township is a B-rated district that serves 11,000 students, nearly 92% of whom are students of color.

Young is an Indianapolis native whose mother was a longtime Indianapolis Public Schools teacher and father was a graduate of IPS, he wrote in his cover letter — bringing a familiarity of the local education scene that school board members are likely to appreciate.

“It is not only my belief, but it is also my experience that all children can learn and excel at the highest level with the appropriate supports, guidance, and relevant authentic learning experiences,” Young wrote. “Furthermore, I believe it is the responsibility of educators, at all levels, to commit to providing each scholar with a world class education.”

Young was not immediately available for comment.

Throughout his long career at Pike Township, Young has worked as a teacher, elementary school principal, and in various administrative roles, a career ladder that he touted as preparing him to lead a district. Young worked on a district-wide wellness effort focused on healthy nutrition and exercise.

While Pike Township is a smaller district, it also serves a high-poverty population. Indianapolis Public Schools officials will likely be interested in what strategies Young could transfer over.

Still, Pike Township is a more traditionally structured district that loses far fewer students to school choice than Indianapolis Public Schools. School board members could grill Young over what he would do to attract and retain students, whether he is willing to work with charter schools, and how he would lead a district in the national spotlight for its innovation schools.

Read the letters from their applications about why they want to become the next superintendent.

An Indianapolis charter pioneer urges school leaders to ‘step up’ in face of political pressure

2019-06-04T01:43:17+00:00

As the school choice debate emerges as an issue in the presidential election, an architect of Indianapolis’ charter sector says the controversial schools aren’t fighting back strongly enough against their critics.

“We’re seeing a very concerted effort nationwide to try to suggest that charter schools as a whole are bad for public education, that they’re bad for kids,” said former Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson. “And the charter sector needs to step up its game and work a lot harder on telling the truth and telling the story about the successes of charter schools.”

Peterson, a Democrat, campaigned for the 2001 state law that allowed charter schools in Indiana, and as mayor, he oversaw the first charter schools in Indianapolis. He now leads Christel House, a network of local charter schools and international schools, and on Monday received an award from The Mind Trust, the city’s key advocacy group that he helped launch, for his work championing charter schools.

While the opposition to charter schools has been “relentless,” Peterson said the charter school movement grew complacent as it garnered momentum across the country over the past three decades as a way to give public education options to students in failing schools.

But now, charter schools face rising national backlash, in the wake of teacher strikes, wavering Democratic support, and several scandals involving the mismanagement of charter schools, such as inflating attendance numbers or pocketing public funds.

Still, in Indianapolis, charter schools have enjoyed strong bipartisan support and have forged an unlikely alliance with Indianapolis Public Schools to turn around or run schools within the district.

Such support made its way through the Indiana Roof Ballroom at The Mind Trust’s event Monday, coined as an evening of “Celebrating Education Progress.” Among the estimated 650 attendees were community education advocates, local government officials, state lawmakers, and a lineup of Indianapolis mayors past and present.

“We’ve made a lot of progress, but we can’t rest on our laurels,” said Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education Teresa Lubbers, who helped write charter school laws during her time as a Republican state lawmaker. “We still have plenty of work to do.”

The event also featured a musical performance by a student choir from Tindley Collegiate Academy, a charter school located on the city’s east side.

“You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes,” read a student, still dressed in the school’s maroon uniform, from the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou amid the choir’s rendition of “Rise Up” by singer-songwriter Andra Day. “But still, like air, I’ll rise.”

Indianapolis is home to more than 50 charter schools. Charter advocates say increased competition between charter schools and district schools spurs better academic results. Some studies have shown that students fare better in charter or innovation schools than in traditional district schools.

“There’s a shared sense of responsibility and accountability for every single student now, more broadly than there was back when it was a ‘we’ vs. ‘they’ thing in the 2000s,” Peterson told Chalkbeat.

Still, Indianapolis charter schools have some vocal critics. While district leaders have quickly steered the innovation strategy over the past five years, the district is undergoing a time of transition as it searches for its next leader and after two innovation supporters on the school board were unseated by skeptics.

Some, such as Sen. Greg Taylor, a Democrat from Indianapolis, question whether Indiana has been choosy enough — and cautious enough — when it comes to opening charter schools.

“Charter schools can be an asset, but just like anything else, if you have too many, with very little regulation and little accountability, you can have too many,” said Taylor, who did not attend the event.

With a proliferation of charter schools in Indianapolis, groups like The Mind Trust are calling for quality over quantity. They advocate for strict vetting and oversight of charter schools and have supported the replication of proven charter schools. In Indianapolis, for example, charter networks like Tindley, KIPP, Herron, and Phalen have expanded after seeing some successes in their initial schools.

But as the charter scene matures, struggling schools are also closing — which charter advocates support as a method for holding the school and their authorizers accountable. Peterson said as an authorizer of charters, he considered it “a personal failure” when his office shut down a charter school in 2005 — Flanner House Higher Learning Center, which faced accusations that it had signed up and received public money for students that it could not account for.

“We know there are bad charter schools out there, and we shouldn’t apologize for those charter schools,” Peterson said. “We should try to get them to improve or see that they lose their charters and go away, and get kids into a school that is a high-quality school.”

Opponents often seize on malfeasance to call for an end to charter schools, but Peterson said it would be “appalling” to try to get rid of them.

“You know what it was like in this city before we had charter schools? A child was statistically destined to a certain life based on what their address was,” Peterson said. “Right now, there are a lot of options. … I believe I’ll live to see a day when they’re all high-quality in this city. And I can’t imagine someone wanting to turn the clock back.”

As innovation schools mature, IPS leaders grapple with how to measure their success

2019-05-22T21:56:28+00:00

Four years after they launched an experiment to allow outside managers to run schools, leaders in Indianapolis Public Schools are grappling with how to measure whether those campuses are succeeding.

Indiana’s largest district took a radical step when it handed management of one of its most chronically troubled schools to a private operator in 2015. In the years since, the innovation network — which also includes new and existing charter schools that are now considered part of the district — has vastly expanded. One in four Indianapolis Public Schools students attends a school run by a private manager.

Now, as the first group of innovation schools nears the end of their contracts, the school board faces an inevitable question: How should it judge the quality of those schools, and should it set explicit standards?

The implications of the decision, which are expected to begin in December, are significant for students. If the board decides not to renew an agreement, a school’s manager could be ousted. That could mean even more disruption for troubled campuses that have already been overhauled with new leaders and teachers in a bid to improve results.

Innovation schools that are independent charter schools could be forced to leave Indianapolis Public Schools buildings or could be cut off from district services, such as busing and food service.

While some innovation schools have seen significant gains on state tests, others continue to flounder. That means the school board will likely face some tough calls as it decides whether to renew agreements. At a board meeting Tuesday, a discussion of the renewal process soon turned to just what the board should demand from schools.

“I think the whole concept is, we made these, especially the takeovers, to improve the options,” said school board member Diane Arnold. If the schools are still getting F grades from the state several years after the overhaul, the approach is not working, she said.

The board can draw a line in the sand, requiring innovation schools to have a certain state grade to win renewal, said interim Superintendent Aleesia Johnson. But if it does, that opens up questions about whether traditional schools, turnaround schools, and independent charter schools should be held to the same standard.

“Does it stay the same standard across all of our schools no matter type?” Johnson asked. “You get stuck sometimes when you draw the line that hard.”

Board member Taria Slack said that the district has to set reasonable expectations for how long it takes schools to improve. “We got to find out, how long does that take for proficiency to kick in?” she said.

Innovation school contracts are designed to be reviewed and potentially renewed on a regular basis — typically every five years. Ahead of board decisions on whether to renew, the administration plans to produce a report on each school. In addition to the data on schools, the reports will incorporate information from visits and interviews with families, staff, and others involved in the schools.

Innovation schools’ mixed results on state tests have been obscured because they have been graded by a more generous measure than most other schools. This year, the earliest group of innovation schools — including schools up for renewal — will for the first time be graded by the state in the same way as other campuses.

How innovation schools fare on state tests and other measures of success will have significant political implications and, potentially, determine whether the district continues to pursue the strategy. Just one new innovation school will join the network next fall. While innovation schools have drawn vocal criticism from some parents and community members who worry they are draining resources and attention from other campuses, supporters of the schools say they are helping improve results for students.

“We started down this road because we believe it’s the best thing to do,” said school board member Venita Moore. “I’m hoping that after four years, we will be able to say that we believe and we are able to show that this has been the right direction.”

After years of rapid growth, only one new innovation school will open in Indianapolis next year

2019-04-24T20:58:48+00:00

A nationally watched and controversial strategy that has transformed Indianapolis Public Schools appears to be slowing down.

The state’s largest district has added an average of five schools each year since 2015 to its network of independent innovation schools. But next fall, just one new school will join the innovation network.

This doesn’t necessarily mean innovation schools, which are managed by outside organizations such as charter schools, have fallen out of favor among district leaders. But some observers question whether Indianapolis Public Schools’ current state of uncertainty may explain why it is being less aggressive.

Indianapolis Public Schools is being led by an interim superintendent who once spearheaded the innovation strategy but is now seeking to lead the district permanently. Additionally, there are three new school board members, including two who are skeptical of innovation.

“It’s not surprising that when you have an interim superintendent and a new school board, that there is a window of time where the speed of change might not be as fast,” said Brandon Brown, who leads The Mind Trust, a nonprofit that supports innovation schools. “But my sense is over the long-term we will continue to move forward at a clip similar to what we’ve seen in the past.”

While Brown said he expected to see more opposition on the board to innovation schools after November’s election, all innovation school contracts that have come before the panel have passed.

But the board could face more contentious decisions next year. Of the eight schools and charter networks that sent Indianapolis Public Schools letters of interest, only one new school was presented to the board for a vote. The board approved an agreement with a high school run by the KIPP charter network, which runs two existing innovation schools. At least one of the proposed schools is expected to come before the board next year.

Innovation schools began four years ago as a strategy that aims to improve failing schools and boost enrollment at a time when the district was shrinking. The schools now enroll about 25 percent of Indianapolis Public Schools students. Innovation schools are managed by outside organizations, largely charter networks, and their teachers are not covered by the district contract or union. But Indianapolis Public Schools gets credit for their enrollment, test scores, and other academic data.

Interim Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, who developed innovation partnerships in her previous role, said the slow down in the number of innovation schools approved for next year does not signal a shift in direction. Instead, it is the result of the administration doing the same due diligence it does every year to ensure that agreements are a fit for the district.

“I don’t think there’s anything to read in the tea leaves around whether we are still committed to the strategy or not,” Johnson said. “It really is organically how it played out this year, and I’m totally OK with that.”

That was a sentiment echoed by Indianapolis Public Schools Board President Michael O’Connor, who said the process for selecting innovation partners remains the same, and the district is making decisions in the best interest of students.

“We want a process that is rigorous,” he said. “I believe this administration will continue to bring to us schools that are ready.”

The school board went through a dramatic shift in November, when Susan Collins and Taria Slack, who were vocally skeptical of innovation schools, ousted incumbent board members who had largely supported innovation schools to win seats.

Although the school board does not break down evenly between innovation supporters and critics — and members flip back and forth for votes on individual schools — supporters of innovation schools still hold a rough majority. The election results, however, could make it more difficult for potentially divisive innovation schools to win board approval.

Even critics of innovation schools do not think the slowdown is the beginning of a long-term shift in policy. Charity Scott, who leads the IPS Community Coalition, which is critical of innovation schools, said she sees it as a public relations strategy. Leaders are avoiding controversial decisions while the district is led by Johnson, who has also applied to lead Indianapolis Public Schools permanently, she said.

“It’s definitely slowing down to reframe after losing two school board seats, as well as trying to get the interim superintendent to become the long-term superintendent,” Scott said.

In part, the slow down is because the Indianapolis Public Schools administration did not recommend handing any struggling schools over to outside innovation operators. But it’s also because interest in partnerships between the district and independent charter schools fizzled.

Aleicha Ostler, a former Indianapolis Public Schools principal who is founding a charter school, was initially interested in joining the innovation network, which allows participating schools to buy services such as food and transportation from the district. But ultimately, her board concluded that in the first year, the school would be better off working with contractors, she said.

The school, Invent Learning Hub, will launch as an independent charter school, she said.

“It’s definitely a door that we will keep open,” Ostler said. “When we become a larger school, the benefit might be there.”

In the case of Purdue Polytechnic High School, which is planning to open a second campus on the north side of the district next school year, it was the district that decided not to go forward with an innovation agreement, said Scott Bess, who leads the network.

The first Purdue campus has been an innovation school since it opened last school year. But over the last several months, the charter network and Indianapolis Public Schools have been in a political showdown over the future of the former Broad Ripple High School building. Bess is interested in opening the second Purdue school at the site, while Indianapolis Public Schools aims to sell the lucrative asset to a developer.

Last week, an administration official called to say that the district would not be going forward with an innovation partnership with the second campus because there was not enough support on the board, Bess said. “I think good superintendents, which they have, never want to take something to the board that they are not sure if they are going to approve,” he added.

Johnson said the agreement had not gone forward with Purdue because there is still uncertainty around where the school would be located long term and what enrollment would look like. As with the other schools, the district could partner with them in the future, she added.

“It doesn’t mean never,” Johnson said. “It means we didn’t decide to move forward in this particular season.”

IPS hoped lawmakers would help them sell Broad Ripple. The final bill has a catch.

2019-04-23T21:15:13+00:00

Legislation that aims to give districts more freedom to sell their unused schools would grant a charter school dibs to space in the former Broad Ripple High School — even if it is sold to a private developer.

It’s a stumbling block that could lead Indianapolis Public Schools to hold off on selling the site.

The bill finalized by Indiana lawmakers this week would loosen some of the restrictions of a state law that requires districts to make school buildings available to charter schools for $1 before selling them on the private market.

The legislation, the result of months of political jockeying, shortens the window for charter schools to claim buildings from two years to 90 days. Additionally, a charter school would need to ensure it meets enrollment guidelines in order to take over a large campus.

But if a district ultimately sells a large property to a private buyer, nearby charter schools would be able to make claims for space at the site at below market value.

The changes are of particular interest to cash-strapped Indianapolis Public Schools, which has sought the ability to sell the Broad Ripple campus without restrictions. Interim Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said the bill is an improvement, but requiring developers to make space for charter schools would possibly prevent the district from getting the maximum revenue for Broad Ripple.

“I’m not pleased that we are going to be limited in our ability to get maximum value because the Statehouse decided to limit our ability to do so,” Johnson said.

If the bill is signed by the governor, the Indianapolis Public Schools board will need to decide how to proceed with the site. The board could decide to sell the property, continue to use it, or use it temporarily and return to lawmakers next year to seek additional modifications to the law.

The bill could pave the way for charter network Purdue Polytechnic, which has the backing of former Governor Mitch Daniels, to locate its second campus at the site. Since the charter school has opened a temporary location about a quarter mile from Broad Ripple, it would fall within the area governed by the provision allowing a nearby charter to pay half the market rate for facilities in the building if sold on the private market.

Scott Bess, who leads the Purdue charter schools, said that the network may be interested in the site depending on the eventual development plan. But its decision hinges on whether and when the district decides to sell the property, he said.

“If there’s gonna be an educational component in the development, we want the option to raise our hand and say, ‘Hey we’ve made a commitment to the community, we’d like to have an opportunity to be the educational component,’ ” Bess said. “If the conditions are right, we might raise our hand and say we’d like to be part of the development.”

Some neighbors have supported Purdue’s interest in the property, saying they want it to continue being used for education rather then for housing and other commercial development. Colleen Fanning, a city council member and the executive director of Broad Ripple Village Association, told Chalkbeat that it’s reasonable to expect multiple uses for the site, but the community wants an educational use.

“The ball is in IPS’s court. They need to move it forward,” she said. “We don’t want a vacant parcel there.”

The bill drew opposition from lawmakers who say that districts should not be required to sell buildings to charter schools in the first place.

Rep. Ed DeLaney, an Indianapolis Democrat, warned that current law prevents school districts from reducing their footprint.

“What’s wrong with this bill is what it doesn’t do: It doesn’t address the underlying $1 problem. It compounds it,” DeLaney said Monday during debate over the bill.

These charter schools could soon turn to IPS for help with special education

2019-03-22T20:50:20+00:00

Some charter schools could soon have access to special education services from Indianapolis Public Schools, allowing them to tap in to the expertise of the state’s largest district.

Indianapolis Public Schools is considering launching a cooperative that would allow a handful of innovation schools — which are run by outside operators, including charters — to pay the district to help educate special needs students. The move would be a significant step in the district’s development as a service provider to schools it doesn’t manage.

Although the details are not yet solidified, the cooperative could launch as soon as next school year, and five innovation schools are interested in participating. The plan is still in early development, but the board is expected to consider the final proposal sometime this spring.

While small charter schools may not be equipped to handle intense student needs, the district has the expertise and resources to help, said interim Superintendent Aleesia Johnson.

“It just makes sense for us to figure out ways in which students and families can access those services,” she said. “They are our students, so we need to make sure they are served well across all of our schools.”

The aim is to create a system where students get comparable special education regardless of their schools and costs are cut by sharing specialized educators, said Brent Freeman, who oversees special education for the district.

Some innovation schools already receive special education services directly from the district, such as the schools that voluntarily converted. But charter schools in the network are largely responsible for providing those services themselves. If the district begins offering special education services, it would be part of broader set of basic services such as food, busing, and custodians already available to certain innovation schools.

For some schools, providing special education services can be a challenge, Freeman said. If a student at an independent charter school needs to be in a life skills setting, for example, the school may have to build a setting specifically for that student. With a cooperative, the student would be able to attend an existing Indianapolis Public Schools life skills program, he said.

As school choice proliferates, there are questions around whether all schools are serving students with special needs. Like all public schools, Indiana charter schools are required to educate children who need special education services. But critics of charter schools often argue that they push out students with special needs, boosting their own test scores and avoiding costly interventions.

While some charter schools say they can better cater to individual students, some critics wonder whether standalone charter schools can afford to provide the level of special education services that larger districts have historically provided.

Indianapolis Public Schools has not yet settled on precisely which services the cooperative might cover. Some services could include placements in therapeutic mental health settings or classrooms for students with intensive emotional or cognitive disabilities, Freeman said.

“Then we’re talking about services like audiology that are more obscure and hard for a single site to provide, but in a district of our size we can provide,” he added. Audiologists work with students with hearing problems.

Just how schools will pay for the services the district provides is also uncertain. One option would be for them to pay a set fee, like health insurance, where the cost of expensive services are shared across the schools. Another would be for schools to only pay for the services they need. The most likely option, Freeman said, would be a hybrid model with a base fee and additional costs for intensive services.

These are the schools that are interested in joining the first year:

Ignite Achievement Academy at School 42
Matchbook Learning at School 63
Emma Donnan Elementary School
URBAN ACT Academy at School 14
Kindezi Academy at School 69

With new deal, IPS could pay for 2 KIPP charter schools’ busing with local tax money

2019-03-20T21:21:48+00:00

The Indianapolis Public Schools board will vote Thursday on whether to provide some KIPP charter school students free busing, a move that would give the schools rare access to services funded by local property tax money.

The board is considering extending to two KIPP schools the free busing it has been providing to former neighborhood schools that were overhauled by charter partners. While the KIPP schools, like those schools, are part of the district’s innovation network, they were previously independent charter schools and have picked up part of the cost of busing their receives from the district.

The vote is significant because Indiana charter schools don’t typically have access to the local tax money that helps fund school buildings and pay for busing. But as the line between district and charter schools blurs in Indianapolis, that’s changing.

“We believe that students who are being served in IPS facilities should benefit from services that are provided by those local property tax funds,” said Jamie VanDeWalle, the district’s portfolio officer, at a school board meeting Tuesday.

The deal is part of a revamping of the contract with the KIPP Indy schools, which serve about 800 students, at the same time the Indianapolis Public Schools board considers whether to add the planned KIPP high school to the innovation network. The board is expected to vote on the agreements Thursday.

The high school would pay for bus service because it is not housed in an Indianapolis Public Schools facility, VanDeWalle said.

How to divvy up money from local property taxes is a controversial issue. In Indiana, schools receive the vast majority of their funding from the state. But they rely on local funding to pay for expenses such as transportation and building maintenance. While charter schools get the same per pupil funding from the state as district schools, they don’t typically benefit from local taxes.

Charter school advocates, however, have long argued that they are underfunded relative to traditional public schools. When Indianapolis Public Schools leaders began their campaign for a tax increase, which easily passed last year, critics of charter school partnerships were wary the money would go to innovation schools. Earlier this year, lawmakers proposed requiring traditional districts that win additional funding for facilities in referendums to share the money with charter schools, but that plan soon died.

The KIPP deal is an example of how a district that chooses to partner with charter schools could share some of the property tax money it receives. But the idea is also controversial.

Chrissy Smith, a parent who opposes innovation schools, said that the district should not provide services including busing to these schools for free.

“Please do not ask IPS students and teachers to continue to do without while you sign contracts that hand over resources to charters,” said Smith, a leader in the IPS Community Coalition, a group that opposes many of the policies of the current district administration.

The district already subsidizes transportation for KIPP. Under the current contract, KIPP pays a transportation fee of $585 per student, or about $470,000 this year. That’s significantly less then the $1.3 million it is expected to cost the district to provide the service to those students, according to chief financial manager Weston Young.

The contract would also change how KIPP pays for the buildings it occupies. Instead of paying a facilities fee that includes custodial services, the school would directly pay the district for those services. It’s a change that would actually result in the district getting about $75,000 more per year from the schools, VanDeWalle said. The network will also pay the district a new $25,000 annual administrative fee.

Over time, transporting KIPP students will become more efficient, officials said. If the new contract is approved, the district estimates it will continue to cost about $1.3 million per year to provide transportation for elementary and middle school students, Young said. But as the district buses more and more students to the planned high school, the per pupil costs of busing all of the KIPP students is projected to go down.

Because KIPP primarily serves students near the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood, the full cost of busing their students is relatively low, Young said. When the high school is fully enrolled, it is expected to cost about $960 per student to bus KIPP students. For comparison, the district expects to spend about $1,360 next year for the average cost of busing an Indianapolis Public Schools student.

D.C. City Council approves Ferebee as chancellor after a grueling confirmation process

2019-03-05T19:35:09+00:00

Lewis Ferebee was officially confirmed as chancellor of the Washington, D.C., school system Tuesday, two months after leaving Indianapolis to pursue the job.

The D.C. Council confirmed Ferebee Tuesday, the final step in a process that began when he was nominated by Mayor Muriel Bowser last year. While serving as interim chancellor, Ferebee has gone on an outreach blitz in the district, winning a broad swath of support. At the same time, he has faced tough scrutiny from the press and lawmakers.

When Ferebee came to Indianapolis Public Schools from North Carolina five years ago, he was a relatively untested leader in his first role as superintendent. Over the course of his time here, he wooed state and local influencers who had been at odds with the district, and he transformed the school system into one built on collaboration with charter schools. At the same time, the ambitious young leader rose to national prominence, becoming a darling of charter school advocates.

Ferebee’s record in Indianapolis faced unflattering scrutiny during a nearly 10-hour hearing by the D.C. Council last month. But ultimately, he won the support of the council, including those who were critical during the hearing.

Ferebee’s community outreach and courting of local leaders appears to have paid off. Council member Charles Allen said that he spoke with community members about their priorities, and they include having a chancellor who is an “unapologetic champion” of neighborhood schools, someone with a focus on equity, and someone who could build trust.

“Every single thing that I went out and said I need to hear a new chancellor say, he went out and said,” Allen added.

The council also seems to be persuaded by Ferebee’s assurance that the partnerships with charter schools that were his signature policy in Indianapolis may not be the right fit for D.C.

“I’m not thrilled about some of the things that took place in Indianapolis,” said council member Kenyan McDuffie. But, he added, he had been assured that Ferebee is not aiming to replicate his strategy from Indianapolis in D.C.

Many in D.C. are still frustrated by the selection process for a new chancellor, but that was not held against Ferebee. Council member Elissa Silverman said students, parents, educators, and community members should have had a greater say in selecting a chancellor, instead of serving as a “rubber stamp” for the mayor’s nominee. But Ferebee has tried to address that tension, she said.

”He has been accessible and tireless in community engagement since he has been named the interim chancellor,” Silverman said. “In my mind, that shows some political savvy — something that was lacking in our last chancellor.”

The support Ferebee won from council members was a sharp contrast with the confirmation hearing they held last month when council members grilled him about his time in Indianapolis. They dug into academic issues such as declining passing rates on state tests, a growing gap between black students and their white peers, and the district’s graduation rates. Ferebee was also pressed about his handling of a three-year-old sexual abuse scandal after district staff failed to properly report a sexual relationship between a counselor and student.

One of Ferebee’s most notable initiatives also drew criticism. Innovation schools, which are considered part of the district but run by charter or nonprofit managers, were a focus for council members who did not want to see a similar approach in D.C.

Indiana lawmakers take step to eliminate generous ‘growth-only’ grades for all schools, not just those in IPS

2019-02-18T19:51:31+00:00

A panel of Indiana lawmakers took a first step Monday to stop giving new and overhauled schools more generous state A-F grades that consider only how much students improve on tests and cut schools slack for low test scores.

The House Education Committee was initially looking to clamp down on Indianapolis Public Schools’ innovation schools, barring them from using student test score improvement as the sole determinant in their first three years of A-F grades. The more generous scale has boosted IPS’ performance as it launches a new strategy of partnering with charter operators, by allowing some innovation network schools to earn high marks despite overall low test scores.

But lawmakers expanded the scope of the bill to stop all schools from receiving what are known as “growth-only grades” after Chalkbeat reported that IPS’ overhauled high schools were granted a fresh start from the state — a move that would allow the high schools to tap into the more lenient grading system.

“I want to be consistent, and I felt like [grading] wasn’t consistent before, it was just hodge-podge,” said committee Chairman Bob Behning, an Indianapolis Republican. “We need to be transparent with parents.”

Read: Why it’s hard to compare Indianapolis schools under the A-F grading system

The committee unanimously approved the bill. If it passes into law, Indianapolis Public Schools stands to be one of the districts most affected. Growth-only grades for innovation schools have given the district’s data a boost, accounting for eight of the district’s 11 A grades in 2018. All of its high schools could also be eligible for growth-only grades this year.

Indianapolis Public Schools officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In the past, they have defended the two-tiered grading system, arguing that growth on state tests is an important window into how schools are educating students. Growth-only grades were originally intended to offer new schools time to get up and running before being judged on student test scores.

IPS was also the target of another provision in the updated bill that would add in stricter rules for when and how schools can ask for a “baseline reset” — the fresh start that its four high schools were recently granted.

Read: IPS overhauled high schools. Now, the state is giving them a fresh start on A-F

The resets, which districts can currently request from the state education department if they meet certain criteria that show they’ve undergone dramatic changes, wipe out previous test scores and other student performance data to give schools a fresh start. The reset schools are considered new schools with new state ID numbers.

The state determined a reset was necessary for IPS’ four remaining high schools because of the effects of decisions last year to close three campuses, shuffle staff, and create a new system a new system for students to choose their schools. Each school will start over with state letter grades in 2019.

But Behning and other lawmakers were skeptical that such changes merited starting over with accountability, and they were concerned that the process could occur without state board of education scrutiny. If passed into law, the bill would require the state board to approve future requests for accountability resets.

A state board staff member testified in favor of the change. The state education department did not offer comments to the committee.

Rep. Vernon Smith, a Democrat from Gary, said he didn’t like the fact that a reset could erase a school’s data, adding that he had concerns about “the transparency of a school corporation getting a new number.”

The amended bill wouldn’t remove the reset for IPS high schools, but by eliminating the growth-only grades, it would get rid of some of the incentive for districts to ask for a reset to begin with. Under current law, reset schools are considered new and qualify for growth-only grades. But the bill would require that reset schools be judged on the state’s usual scale, taking into account both test scores and test score improvement — and possibly leading to lower-than-anticipated state grades.

The amended bill would still offer a grading grace period to schools opening for the first time: New charter schools would be able to ask the state to give them no grade — known as a “null” grade — for their first three years, but schools’ test score performance and test score growth data would still be published online. Behning said he didn’t include district schools in the null-grade measure because they haven’t frequently opened new schools, but he said he’d be open to an amendment.

The bill next heads to the full House for a vote.

Want a say in the next IPS superintendent? Here’s your chance.

2019-02-15T19:35:12+00:00

Parents, teachers, and neighbors will have a chance to weigh in on what they hope to see in the next Indianapolis Public Schools superintendent and the future of the district at three community meetings in the coming weeks.

The meetings, which will be facilitated by Herd Strategies at three sites across the city, will gather feedback before the school board begins the search for a new superintendent. The school board is expected to select the next superintendent in May.

Board President Michael O’Connor said the meetings are designed to get input on what the public values in the next superintendent. But they will also play another role, allowing community members to reflect and give feedback on the district’s embrace of innovation schools, one of the most controversial strategies rolled out during former Superintendent Lewis Ferebee’s administration.

“As we look for the next superintendent, it’s perfect for us to take input on that path that we’ve taken and then hear what [community members] think is working well and maybe what they think we could do better,” O’Connor said, noting that the administration and board are often criticized for failing to engage the public.

Innovation schools are run by outside charter or nonprofit managers, but they are still considered part of the district. Indianapolis Public Schools gets credit from the state for their test scores, enrollment, and other data. The model is lauded by charter school advocates across the country, and it helped Ferebee gain national prominence.

Ferebee left Indianapolis in January after he was tapped to lead the Washington, D.C., school system. Indianapolis Public Schools is being led by interim Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, who was formerly the deputy superintendent and is seen as a leading candidate to fill the position permanently.

Here is information about the three scheduled community input sessions:

Feb. 27, Hawthorne Community Center, 1-3 p.m.

March 7, Arsenal Technical High School in the Anderson Auditorium, 6-8 p.m.

March 13, George Washington Carver Montessori School 87 in the gymnasium, 6-8 p.m.

As D.C. leaders vet Ferebee, his track record in Indy falls under a harsh spotlight

2019-02-13T04:41:54+00:00

Former Indianapolis Superintendent Lewis Ferebee was grilled about the performance of students in Indianapolis Public Schools during a confirmation hearing Tuesday to lead the Washington, D.C., school system.

During a nearly 10-hour hearing that grew heated at times, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson interrogated Ferebee about why student passing rates on Indiana’s state test declined during a three-year period in Ferebee’s tenure — and the gap between black students and their white peers grew wider.

The exchange was the tensest part of the hearing, one of three being held in Washington to garner public input about Ferebee as he awaits confirmation to lead the district. Ferebee, who left Indianapolis in January, was also questioned about a sex abuse scandal in Indiana and his former district’s partnerships with charter schools. The D.C. City Council has until April 9 to confirm or reject Ferebee or he will automatically be confirmed.

One statistic council members zeroed in on is that just 14 percent of black students passed both the math and English state assessments in Indianapolis last year.

“One of the biggest problems we have [in D.C.] are the achievement gaps we have in our academic performance,” said Council member David Grosso, who chairs the education committee. “My concern here is that it appears that the gap got wider in Indianapolis.”

Ferebee largely dismissed the results of the test, saying that it was an inconsistent measure of what students were learning because the exam was modified repeatedly while he led the district. (Despite changes in the test, Indiana officials consider the results comparable between 2015 and 2018.)

He said that instead of relying on state test scores to measure schools, Indianapolis Public Schools focused on other measures such as SAT scores, dual enrollment courses where students earn college credit, and AP course enrollment.

“I did not feel comfortable nor did the school board of Indianapolis Public Schools feel comfortable having a sole focus on a state test that was very volatile from year-to-year,” he said, adding later, “We didn’t have a consistent state test or curriculum.”

That wasn’t an explanation that satisfied Mendelson.

“Your answer is sort of like saying, even though tests are a way of measuring progress, when the test results don’t look so good, we are going to look at other measures,” he said. “That leaves me skeptical.”

While Ferebee cited rising graduation rates as one of his accomplishments, Mendelson also dug into those figures. He focused on why the percentage of students who graduated without passing state tests rose and why the graduation rate in district-managed schools declined last year.

“One way to measure how good you’ll be here is how good you were there, and that growth wasn’t so great, and there are questions about that growth,” Mendelson said. “Tell me why that’s not a concern?”

Ferebee said that he was not concerned about state test waivers that those students used to graduate, which he described as a “very rigorous process.” Even though students who earn waivers are not passing state tests, he said, they are showing proficiency in other ways. To receive waivers, students must meet a host of requirements, such as maintaining certain attendance and grade requirements.

“With great confidence I can share with you that every student who graduates has a post-secondary plan that’s verified to ensure that the student is prepared for college and career,” Ferebee said.

The back-and-forth came after hours of testimony from members of the public that also included criticism of Ferebee’s work in Indianapolis as well as support from residents he has met as he toured the district.

The scrutiny from the public and council members focused on issues that defined Ferebee’s tenure in Indianapolis Public Schools, including a three-year-old abuse scandal that rocked the city after district staff failed to properly report a sexual relationship between a counselor and student.

Denise Krepp, a member of an Advisory Neighborhood Commission who spoke during the public comment, said that the DC school district is struggling with its own sex abuse problems and Ferebee’s handling of the case in Indianapolis should be disqualifying.

“I’m troubled by Mr. Ferebee’s candidacy, and I’m troubled because of what I know about what happened in Indianapolis,” she said.

But it was not only the problems in Indianapolis that drew negative attention. There was also criticism of his signature achievement: The development of innovation schools, which are considered part of the district but run by charter or nonprofit managers.

Signe Nelson, an English as a second language teacher who is on the Washington Teachers Union executive board, spoke in opposition to Ferebee’s appointment because he turned Indianapolis schools over to private operators. Years of charter school expansion in D.C. have not improved education for most students, she said.

“My real concern here is privatization of public education,” she said. “It looks to me like the plan is to continue to privatize at the expense of public education by setting the foxes to guard the hen house.”

Ferebee portrayed innovation schools, which helped him gain acclaim among charter school advocates, as a model that was designed to meet the specific needs in Indianapolis.

“What may have worked in the school systems I have previously worked in, may not be the best solution here,” Ferebee told the council, echoing a statement he made when his nomination was announced in December.

Although his work in Indianapolis was scrutinized throughout the hearing, council members had many less tense interactions about subjects ranging from preschool to school technology. Several members of the public also spoke in favor of Ferebee’s appointment, highlighting how much he has listened to community members in recent weeks.

Darrell Gaston, a member of an Advisory Neighborhood Commission, said that he supports Ferebee’s selection.

“His public commitment to neighborhoods are strong. His verbal commitment to me on parental engagement is to be commended,” Gaston said. “My only hope is that if he is confirmed as the next chancellor, that he keeps the same energy, passion, excitement, engagement, and dedication to the community.”

The fate of these Indianapolis schools is once again uncertain, years after state takeover

2019-02-08T22:49:04+00:00

Seven years after Indiana seized control of four failing schools from the Indianapolis Public Schools district, state officials must now decide the fate of three of those campuses.

State control of Emma Donnan Middle School and Howe and Manual high schools, which are managed by an outside charter network, is expected to end in just over a year. But just what will happen next is still uncertain.

It’s the final leg of a tumultuous journey for Indianapolis after the state, in a radical step, took over four failing schools with the promise that new managers would be able to succeed where the district had failed.

So far, the three schools have had mixed academic results. The state grades at Manual, which enrolls about 700 students, and Emma Donnan, which has about 300, have risen to Cs, but Howe, which has about 600, has gotten an F every year since it was taken over.

Now, it’s up to the Indiana State Board of Education to decide the future of the schools. The board will vote to instruct operator Charter Schools USA to take the steps needed to continue running the schools, to close the campuses, or to return them to the district, which will likely also result in their closure. So far, parents, alumni, and residents have favored allowing the schools to stay with Charter Schools USA so that they will remain open.

A special task force is expected to make a recommendation to the board next month. The state has previously extended the contract with CSUSA, delaying the decision over what to do with the schools.

“The community is really excited about the future of these schools and cares deeply about these schools,” said state board member David Freitas.

The task force has collected extensive feedback through a series of meetings at the schools and in the surrounding neighborhoods, said Charles Schlegel, a consultant brought in to run the process.

Katie Parker said at a forum on Wednesday in the southside neighborhood near Manual and Emma Donna that she wants the schools to remain with CSUSA because it is the only option that would keep them open. She and her husband want the neighborhood to have a school once they have children.

“We also paid for our house and want it to keep up its value,” she added. “So it’d be really nice if there weren’t … abandoned buildings around the neighborhood.”

Aryn Schounce, a task force member representing neighborhoods on the south side, said some people want more options for the future of Manual, such as new partnerships with other charter schools to share the under-used building or a technical training school that harkens back to the southside high school’s history.

“There’s just a big question about what really is the vision and what distinguishes CSUSA from other charter operators and what distinguishes them from IPS,” she said. But ultimately, “I don’t think anyone in the community wants to see these schools close.”

Residents have raised concerns, however, about the long-term financial sustainability of the schools. If they become charter schools, they would lose out on special funding they are getting because they are overseen by the state. Schlegel estimated funding would go down by 10 to 12 percent.

Ed Mahern, a longtime resident of the Garfield Park neighborhood, said that many nearby families send their children to other school districts or charter schools, rather than Manual. He is concerned the building is far too large for the number of students it now serves.

He questioned how the schools would be able to afford to continue operating. “A charter school is going to get less money per student than what they’ve been getting,” he said.

Eric Lewis, the state director of Indiana for CSUSA, said the schools would be financially sustainable even if they only receive the per-student funding and state grants for which charter schools are eligible. They would have to cut back on some services, such as eliminating some master teachers and ending bus transportation for students who stay after school for tutoring.

“We use school improvement dollars specifically for the turnaround,” Lewis said. “When you don’t have those anymore, just like every other school in the state, you have to use what you have to be able to drive sustainability.”

The fourth school that had been taken over by the state, Arlington High School, was handed back to the district and eventually closed after the local charter operator pulled out.

Although the high schools face the possibility of closure if returned to the district, the situation with Emma Donnan is slightly different. In 2015, CSUSA opened an elementary school in the building that is part of the Indianapolis Public Schools innovation network. As an innovation school, it is overseen by the district but managed by an outside operator. If the agreement is renewed, the elementary school could expand to eighth grade, essentially absorbing the original middle school.

There has been a sea change in strategy since the schools were taken over 2012. The state has not taken any campuses from Indianapolis Public Schools, instead relying on less extreme measures, such as a “transformation zone,” which offers extra coaching and oversight at the district’s most troubled schools.

At the same time, local officials have become more aggressive in their response to chronically failing schools. Indianapolis Public Schools has brought in charter operators to run six failing schools. While the model mirrors state takeover in some ways, the district maintains oversight over innovation schools.

How Lewis Ferebee forged peace with charter competitors to reshape Indianapolis schools

2019-02-07T11:00:37+00:00

Five years ago, a young superintendent months into his first job running a school district walked into the Indiana Statehouse to ask for an unprecedented change.

Lewis Ferebee felt Indianapolis Public Schools should run more like its steepest competitors: charter schools. In some cases, he thought district schools should actually be charter schools, with their own school boards outside of the district’s purview. And he wanted to partner with existing charter schools that had wooed students away from the long-struggling public school district.

“Why do we have to follow the same curriculum, why do we have to do one size fits all, all the same way?” Ferebee said while asking lawmakers to approve the novel arrangements.

It was a radical — and controversial — strategy for turning around one of Indiana’s most troubled school districts. Skeptics criticized the plan, known as innovation schools, as a further dismantling of public education that would destabilize school communities and strip union protections from teachers. But the proposal solved several pressing political problems by allaying the threat of state takeover and forging a peace with local leaders eager for major change within the struggling district.

And just five years later, the plan has undoubtedly transformed the state’s largest district: Nearly a third of Indianapolis Public Schools are innovation schools, and one in four district students now attends one of them. The highly publicized undertaking has vaulted Ferebee to national prominence, shaping Indianapolis into one of the most interesting cities in education and likely contributing to his nomination late last year to become public schools chancellor in Washington, D.C.

But while innovation school supporters have painted a rosy turnaround narrative, Ferebee is leaving before some of the most telling results bear out — a reality that could come up during his confirmation in D.C.

Test scores show students at some innovation schools are making bigger gains than students elsewhere, an outcome that’s bolstered by a recent national study. But a three-year grace period when schools may be graded based on student improvement, not overall test scores, has masked the fact that some of the schools still have among the lowest results in the district. This year, the first innovation schools will get a truer measure of their performance.

While many local leaders, state lawmakers, and education reform advocates have so far lauded the changes under Ferebee, the tide could also be turning. Critics of his administration have formed more organized opposition, helping two people skeptical of innovation schools win seats on the school board that will choose the next superintendent — who, like Ferebee, will play a key role in determining the future of the district.

The hardest question remains to be answered: Will innovation schools bring long-term positive changes for Indianapolis students?

Ending the war

In 2013, Ferebee arrived in Indianapolis to a district in turmoil.

His predecessor, Eugene White, had been at odds with the school board. Four chronically failing district schools had been taken over by the state. Indianapolis Public Schools was losing thousands of students — and state funding that followed them — to neighboring districts, charter schools, and private schools through vouchers.

Indianapolis Public Schools, serving about 30,000 students who are mostly black or Hispanic and mostly from low-income families, had some of the lowest graduation rates out of all public school districts in the state.

Outsiders’ attempts to intervene only seemed to feed an adversarial tension.

“We’ve been at war with IPS for 40 years,” former Mayor Greg Ballard recalled saying to his staff at the time. “How’s that working for us?”

But change was brewing. The Mind Trust, an influential education group that supports charter schools, had intrigued some school board members with an explosive plan that would become the blueprint for innovation schools, proposing to rethink the “broken” Indianapolis Public Schools system.

A new leader was the key to making that work.

In nearly every way, then-39-year-old Ferebee cut a contrast to his predecessor, from his modern suits to his embrace of charter schools. Tall and calm, with thick-rimmed glasses that matched his academic way of speaking, Ferebee quickly won over the board and local leaders.

What local leaders said distinguished him the most, though, was his willingness to collaborate with the mayor’s office and The Mind Trust on “innovation network schools” — the charter partnerships that Ferebee said would give schools more freedom and flexibility.

“I think the fact that Dr. Ferebee is a quiet leader — and is not a flamethrower, and is not a hard-charging reformer — meant that he was able to build coalitions that would have probably been hard for someone else to build,” said The Mind Trust CEO Brandon Brown.

Former school board president Mary Ann Sullivan and former Superintendent Lewis Ferebee accept emails in support of the district’s high school reconfiguration plan from parents with Stand for Children Indiana. September 18, 2017.

Ferebee declined to be interviewed for this story. In the past, when he has been asked about why he supported the idea of innovation schools, he has talked about how having more freedom helped him improve schools when he was a principal in North Carolina.

“A lot of people associated choice and competition with unfriendly interactions,” Ferebee told the Indianapolis Business Journal in 2014. “And I don’t necessarily buy into that way of thinking. Because ultimately, when you do that, then it just creates an opportunity for students to fall through the cracks.”

By championing innovation schools, Ferebee invited criticism from those who saw the approach as “giving away” traditional public schools to charter operators.

Teachers at innovation schools cannot join the district teachers union, and the strategy might not have progressed so quickly if the union had been more powerful. But the Indianapolis Education Association, weakened by state law and internal dysfunction, did not mount a vigorous opposition. And as the schools expanded, fewer and fewer teachers were covered by the district contract.

“It’s a way of putting a different face on charters,” said Susan Collins, a newly elected Indianapolis Public Schools board member who is critical of innovation schools. “We have sold off a particular population of students to benefit a charter.”

But the city’s biggest education reformers, who were pushing for innovation schools, say Ferebee’s support was a critical bridge between ideological divides.

“He put a lot of his personal and professional capital on the line,” said state House education leader Bob Behning, an Indianapolis Republican. “Because Ferebee was willing to do it, I think people saw this as something we should at least consider and look at.”

Fast changes

After receiving special permission from the state, Indianapolis Public Schools moved quickly to begin creating innovation schools in 2015 with the backing of a new slate of reform-friendly board members. The district brought in Phalen Leadership Academies, which ran an Indianapolis charter school, to overhaul School 103, a chronically failing neighborhood school on the far eastside. Phalen took dramatic action, hiring a new principal, replacing teachers, and bringing in a new model that relied on computers.

“What we’re doing won’t be easy,” charter leader Earl Phalen said shortly after the school opened. “But as long as you have every adult in the building buying into it, it can be done.”

The innovation network has grown to 20 schools in the four years since then. Despite the name, most innovation schools are a lot like other charter or magnet schools. Supporters of the approach say the truly innovative element is the partnership between the district and outside managers.

In some cases, Indianapolis Public Schools uses innovation partnerships to overhaul struggling schools such as School 103. But successful district schools and independent charter schools have also signed on. Traditional public schools gain autonomy, and charter schools can tap into the district’s transportation or food services, gain access to buildings, and receive more funding from the district.

The Mind Trust plays a role by identifying and coaching leaders for innovation schools, with many candidates receiving a fellowship to develop their plans. The mayor’s office oversees the innovation schools that also have charters.

Innovation schools differ greatly from district schools in some ways. Their operators have control over daily management, and they are free to make choices such as teaching a STEM-focused curriculum or extending school days. The schools operate outside of the teachers union contract, a sticking point for some of their critics.

Indianapolis Public Schools can benefit from the relationship by getting to count innovation schools’ enrollment, test scores, graduation rates, and school grades toward district-wide metrics. So far, they’re largely making the district look better, at least on paper.

Contracts typically outline expectations for innovation schools, which supporters say allow the district to sever the partnership if needed. Still, low-performing innovation schools have not yet faced serious consequences. And critics say the cash-strapped district has paid the new managers too much money.

One of Ferebee’s biggest wins is that charter competitors have joined the innovation network, including the high-achieving Herron High School and the local KIPP network. Innovation has also brought new models under the district’s wing, like the dual-language program at Global Prep Academy and the widely heralded Purdue Polytechnic High School, an unconventional approach to high school that structures learning around projects.

The innovation network has also given new freedoms to promising district schools, like School 93, which uses an approach created by teachers called Project Restore, built on the core tenets of frequent tests, regular rewards, and consistent discipline.

Even before its conversion to innovation, students at School 93 were making large gains on state tests. And the school’s success had won the leaders lots of flexibility from the district.

But Principal Nicole Fama sought more independence. Now that it’s an innovation school, School 93’s teachers are not employed by the district and not under the union contract. That allows Fama to require teachers to stay after school for tutoring and go to evening events with families.

Becoming an innovation school also gave Fama more certainty. Instead of relying on the next superintendent to support the school’s philosophy, the manager now has an innovation contract through June 2021 clearly outlining its independence.

“We were given the freedom to be trusted 100 percent for the first time,” Fama said. “Because all the other times, even though we were turning schools around, we still always kind of had to operate around certain district parameters.”

Students in Caroline Brooks class fill out geography worksheets, closely reading the map for information. Brooks hopes the students will learn skills that help them on the state test. January 9, 2019.

Uncertain results

Four years into the experiment, there is not yet definitive evidence of whether innovation schools have benefitted student learning overall — and it seems increasingly likely that the results will vary by school, with some showing successful outcomes and others floundering.

Passing rates on state tests have jumped at some innovation schools, and supporters are optimistic the schools will see even more improvement once leaders have had time to lay groundwork by tackling issues such as student discipline and parent engagement. One of the earliest successes was at Global Prep Academy at School 44, where proficiency scores more than doubled the first year. This year, School 93 and Emma Donnan Elementary School had some of the highest scores in the district for student improvement on the state test.

A recently released study found that students at innovation schools improved about as much on tests as the state average, better than district schools did, but the results were not statistically significant.

Some overhauled innovation schools, which serve neighborhood students, still have some of the lowest passing rates in the district. Three innovation schools had such low scores and improvement in 2018 that Ferebee’s administration placed them on a list of low-performing schools eligible for district review. They include two schools where fewer than 10 percent of children passed state tests: Kindezi Academy at School 69 and Ignite Achievement Academy at School 42. The district is not expected to restart any additional schools with innovation partners next school year.

Overall, the district improved in some areas during Ferebee’s tenure, particularly rising graduation rates. But the district remains deeply troubled. After three years of declines, less than a quarter of elementary and middle school students passed both the math and English state tests last year. Black and Hispanic students have significantly lower passing rates than their white peers, and the gap grew wider between 2015 and 2018. While the district improved to an overall D rating from the state, just over half of its schools still have Ds or Fs, slightly fewer than before Ferebee’s arrival.

Despite those enduring problems and the uncertain results from innovation schools, the strategy has already helped the maligned district escape further state intervention — or takeover — and craft a new image as a growing and changing school system.

When innovation schools are new, their results routinely look better on paper. Eight schools had improvement in grades when they became innovation, including schools where passing rates on state tests stagnated or dropped. That’s because schools that join the innovation network can choose for their state grades to be based on a scale that focuses on how much student test scores improve, which typically leads to better grades. But the law only allows schools to be graded that way for three years.

This year will be the first time that a school that was overhauled with a charter partner is graded based on the same standards as other traditional public schools, which are typically more difficult.

Innovation schools have also appeared to help turn around a long-running decline in enrollment in IPS. When Ferebee arrived in 2013, the district enrolled nearly 31,000 students, and in the years since, it has grown by about 700, an accomplishment often cited by his supporters. But dig into the numbers, and it’s clear that enrollment in district-managed schools has continued to slowly shrink, and it is only by adding charter schools to the network that Indianapolis Public Schools has been able to grow.

As innovation schools mature, district leaders will increasingly face the question of how to measure their success and what to do at schools where passing rates on state tests are not improving.

It’s an issue interim Superintendent Aleesia Johnson is grappling with. Some of the first schools that joined the innovation network will be up for contract renewals in 2020, and district officials are working on a framework for assessing those partnerships, Johnson said. Because the final decision depends on what the school board prioritizes, she said she couldn’t give specifics.

Ferebee’s embrace of partnerships with charter schools has helped establish him as a national education leader with particular cachet among advocates for such collaboration — a reputation that was likely one reason he was tapped to the lead the Washington, D.C., school system.

The most significant scandal during Ferebee’s time in Indianapolis came when school officials failed to properly report to the department of child services a sexual relationship between a student and counselor. His handling of that incident is already beginning to draw scrutiny in the capital. But his friendliness to charter schools is also sure to generate controversy. The day Ferebee’s nomination to run Washington, D.C., was announced, he said he did not intend to follow the same approach of collaborating with charter schools.

“It is not my intent to transport strategies from Indianapolis as a panacea for moving us into our next phase of excellence,” he said. “I don’t come to the table assuming that I have all the answers.”

Rising opposition

Despite broad support for innovation schools from the school board, Ferebee faced persistent criticism that he did not do enough to engage the community. Some of the decisions to convert schools were met with outcry from families and educators who were taken by surprise.

It’s a common problem in attempts at education reform in poor communities and communities of color: a feeling that change, even experimentation, is out of their hands and being done unto them, rather than being driven by them.

Local civil rights and community advocate Marshawn Wolley acknowledged that it was important for Indianapolis Public Schools to be open to trying something new. But Wolley said the district hasn’t done enough to engage with families and civic organizations, particularly those representing children of color.

“I don’t think that really the community fully understood what was happening, and I think we’re still trying to figure out the implications,” Wolley said.

Some of the district’s most struggling schools have had dramatic makeovers, removing just about every educator as a new leader attempts a fresh start. But that can cause upheaval for students, observers say.

“It just creates a lot more instability in already unstable home lives,” said Charity Scott, a former teacher who is now executive director of the IPS Community Coalition, a group critical of Ferebee’s administration.

Advocates say compared to other cities, the discord is muted, which allowed the district to transform as quickly as it has. But spurred by discontent over the closing of three high schools unrelated to innovation, concerns over the district’s current trajectory are gaining momentum.

Last fall, two candidates unseated incumbents on the school board who supported Ferebee. New board members Collins and Taria Slack are skeptical of the rapid growth of innovation schools.

For now, most of the board members still seem interested in continuing to expand innovation schools. When Ferebee announced his departure, the board quickly moved to appoint Johnson, who has led the district’s innovation efforts, as the interim leader.

And although Ferebee is gone, the other players who were instrumental in creating a school system where charter and traditional public schools partner are still influential in Indianapolis.

“There are a lot of people working together to make the kinds of changes that have happened over the last five years,” said Caitlin Hannon, who was on the school board when Ferebee was hired and now leads the city’s shared enrollment system for district and charter schools.

Even if Ferebee’s departure alters the speed of transformation, she said, “there are enough people left in Indy who are interested in moving in that direction that it will endure.”